


Downsizing for Beginners

by Nenya85



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh
Genre: Fantasy, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-23
Updated: 2009-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-17 23:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenya85/pseuds/Nenya85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaiba learns that inconsequential sex can have consequences and Yami tests out the idea that his heart really isn't measured by his size. Starts out Kaiba/Shadi. Implied, eventual, Yami/Kaiba. Definitely AU. Set after Battle City/Alcatraz; ignores the DOMA and Ancient Egypt/Memory world arcs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Room with a View

**CHAPTER 1: A ROOM WITH A VIEW**

"Change him back!" Mokuba ordered, trying to sound as tall and as intimidating as his brother.

It made sense that Mokuba would have been the first one to notice what was going on. After all, not too many people voluntarily spent much time with Seto Kaiba, except his employees – if you could call that voluntary, considering how well they were compensated – and they were probably too grateful for the change to ask questions.

It had started in America, after Battle City, Mokuba decided. The flight itself had been great. Kaiba had been excited. For once, he'd been the more talkative brother.

"I've finally got it figured out, Mokuba. You ready for another fresh start? This time I'll get it right. We're going to build Kaiba Land. That was the dream wasn't it? I've let so much time slip through my fingers, chasing ghosts. It's time to get back on track. It's my future. It's our lives. It's time to rebuild – and this time, the foundation's going to be as strong as I can make it."

Mokuba knew his brother wasn't just talking about a theme park for kids, even before his Nisama added, "That's the real way to beat _him_."

Yugi Mutou, or whatever version of him appeared when he dueled, had been Kaiba's main rival for two years. But there was only one " _him"_ in Kaiba's vocabulary – and it wasn't the King of Games.

Kaiba had talked – really talked – to his brother more on that flight than he had in their lives together, had talked in that feverish, intense way he usually reserved for thinking through his systems designs. That he was talking about himself and his dreams and hopes was new – but the way he was doing it was familiar. He was throwing himself into his next project, never once stopping to consider that the assignment he had taken on was the recalibration of his own soul.

Mokuba was proud of his brother. That was hardly news. He approved of his brother's current obsession as well. Kaiba wasn't sleeping or eating any more regularly, but he'd started taking the occasional day off; it seemed he considered spending time with Mokuba to be another way to beat _him._ Mokuba agreed. Of course he would have agreed with anything that gave him time with his brother – and time that didn't revolve around Kaiba Corporation or duel monsters was icing on the cake.

Not that the elder Kaiba quite knew what to do with "free" time. Even Mokuba conceded his brother would probably never see the purpose of going to an amusement park he hadn't designed himself. And Mokuba had stopped pointing out to his brother that providing an ongoing critique of the special effects wasn't an obligatory part of watching movies – mainly because he realized that to his brother, the effects _were_ the story.

In a surprisingly short time though, it had all settled into a routine, like molecules spinning in a centrifuge until they found a new equilibrium. For Mokuba was too young and too pleased with the results to question the means. And Kaiba was too stubborn to realize – much less acknowledge – that reorganizing his soul as if it was his latest business project, was neither possible nor wise.

Shadi's first meeting with Kaiba didn't break the new pattern of Kaiba's life – not that Mokuba knew anything about that visit until much later. That Shadi chose to appear in Kaiba's bedroom late at night was surprising. Kaiba's reaction, however, was typical for the tall duelist.

After Alcatraz, Kaiba had locked his deck in the vault; he'd refused to compete in the tournaments he'd organized. For four months he'd tried to write his future line by line as if he was fixing a faulty piece of coding, ruthlessly deleting whatever items he'd decided no longer fit the program. But Kaiba had never been able to tolerate constraints, even when they were self-imposed.

Shadi had had 3,000 years to pick his moment. Unintentionally, he'd found the perfect one.

"So… it's the ghost those idiots kept going on about on the Battle Blimp. And here I was thinking you were an urban legend." Kaiba said, as if Shadi was just another hologram, and a not particularly entertaining one at that.

"You have no memory of me?" Shadi asked sadly.

"Since this is the first time I've ever laid eyes on you, it would be hard for you to hold a place in my memory. And unless you get a lot more interesting, fast – I'll probably forget you the moment you leave," Kaiba answered.

"You have seen me before – in your previous life."

"If there's a point to this conversation, get to it quickly," Kaiba snapped. He couldn't believe it. He'd been wrestling with the future for months… and here the fucking past had just barged into his bedroom, unannounced, and apparently under the mistaken impression he wanted to chat.

"You know those visions you saw of your life as the pharaoh's high priest were real," Shadi insisted.

"I know that the past doesn't matter," Kaiba snarled.

"It does to me. Our past does," Shadi said quietly.

The softness of his voice caught Kaiba's attention. The past had never sounded so deferential before. He looked more closely at the figure standing so incongruously before him.

"We were friends once… close in body and soul," Shadi continued. "Seeing you at your tournament, even in the distance, reminded me of that… reminded me of how much we had shared, of how much was left incomplete… of how much I want…"

Shadi lowered his eyes at that, and Kaiba decided he liked the sight of the other man's downcast face. Kaiba was sincerely trying to throw of Gozaburo's influence. But that didn't mean he no longer enjoyed the feeling of power… or of danger. And this whole encounter was so weird, so disturbingly eerie, it excited him – especially when combined with Shadi's masked eyes and shallow breathing.

Kaiba had been planning to go to bed, and he considered sleep to be a waste of time. He wouldn't have bothered going out to hunt down a trick, sex had never been that important… but he wasn't about to throw out one that had literally popped in of his own accord. And he couldn't help but note that it would be convenient to have a fuck toy who could disappear the same way. Besides, Kaiba had been itching to screw the past for years, and he figured he'd never get another chance to do it quite so literally.

But Kaiba also had a reluctant respect for fair play, which led him to say, "You want to have sex with me and pretend I'm your mummified friend." He shrugged. "I couldn't care less. You can even shout out his name at all the appropriate moments, since it's my name too," he added, remembering the stone carving he had seen with Isis in the Domino Museum basement. "Just don't expect me to play along. Don't forget that I'm not him. Your fantasy ends in your head."

"If you remember nothing, and are uninterested in exploring our past, why are you agreeing? What are you seeking?" Shadi asked.

"A blow job at the very least. Do we have a deal or not?"

It was entirely in character that Kaiba gave no further thought to Shadi on that night, or any of the ones that occasionally followed, except to note that black hair unwinding from a white turban made for a nice effect, and to idly wonder whether to somehow recycle the image into his upcoming role-playing video game.

And Shadi lived up to his end of their unspoken bargain, never mentioning their shared past, never trying to revive it. In fact, to Kaiba's relief, they didn't talk much. He preferred it that way. Kaiba was a man (at least he considered himself fully an adult, whatever his birth certificate might've said) who liked his sex life as emotionless as the rest of his transactions. And it made their encounters more charged, more surreal, like the kind of kinky virtual reality game he would never have wasted his talents designing.

It was Mokuba who noticed the change in Kaiba first. It wasn't a big deal. One morning, soon after their return to Domino, Kaiba was a little more cheerful at breakfast. It didn't last long. By midday he was his usual snarling, over-competitive self. But a week or so later, when it happened a second time and then for a third, Mokuba was curious.

It was perhaps a function of Mokuba's age (he was only twelve, after all) that he didn't think of sex – at least not in connection with his brother. But Mokuba was the one person Kaiba trusted. And that made it easy for Mokuba to bug his Nisama's room. And easy to shrug the information off, afterwards. His brother was getting laid occasionally. He was a little more relaxed afterwards. Mystery solved; case closed. And since Mokuba really didn't want to think about his brother screwing anyone, much less some freaky guy who seemed to appear out of thin air, he was only too happy to drop the matter from his thoughts.

Until the headaches started.

One day, Kaiba's unaccountably good mood had lasted past his arrival at the office; it even lasted past his heading home at the end of the day (or night). It wasn't anything you could put your finger on. Kaiba was a little more abstracted, a little more relaxed… and a lot less angry.

It hadn't been anything dramatic, until the next day when some misguided fools had attempted the hostile takeover of Kaiba Corporation. Mokuba had been in the office when the news broke. Kaiba's hand slammed down on the desk. He had started pacing… plans to thwart the attempt and wreak vengeance on its perpetrators mingling as he talked, his words getting wilder and his voice getting louder with each turn around the room. It was business as usual.

Then Kaiba had doubled over, hands pressed to his temples, as if fighting off a blinding headache… or something much more dangerous. After a moment, Kaiba had forced himself to stand up straight, and had gone on issuing instructions as if nothing had happened – but his face remained ashen, and his orders were issued through teeth tightly clenched against the pain. Life had gone on like that for the rest of the day, with Kaiba alternating between an unreal serenity and a pain infused rage. With Kaiba refusing to acknowledge any weakness, even a purely physical one, and with Mokuba pretending that nothing was wrong. Then that falsely cheerful vacantness had vanished, taking Kaiba's headache with it. And Mokuba's Nisama had been, once again, his usual bad-tempered, driven self.

Until Shadi's return, two weeks later.

Mokuba wasn't the genius his brother was, but he could recognize a pattern when he saw one. And he was certainly quicker than his brother at realizing that a man who can walk through solid walls is best avoided.

In Mokuba's experience, what he had come to think of as this kind of freaky shit usually meant that Millennium Items were involved. Did Shadi have one? If anyone had ever said so, Mokuba couldn't remember. But all the same, he was willing to bet that Shadi was packing.

None of this meant that Mokuba was anywhere near ready to ask for help. Although he could plead very effectively when he had to, he hated it almost as much as his more ostentatiously recalcitrant brother. What he needed, Mokuba decided, was information. The other Yugi, the one Mokuba had heard was now being called Yami, would have been the logical person to approach, especially now that he seemed to inhabit his own body.

Mokuba was hazy on the details of that transaction, too. The gang hadn't said much on the few occasions where he'd seen them – and Mokuba hadn't asked. They had taken an unexplained trip to Egypt, Yami firmly ensconced in Yugi's puzzle. They had returned as two separate people. Mokuba had been curious, but he was wary of asking personal questions; the idea that they might expect some answers in return bothered him.

Mokuba frowned. Yami had told them once, during Battle City, that he'd been some kind of nameless pharaoh or something. Yami probably knew all about Shadi and whatever powers he had, but something in Mokuba squirmed at the thought of telling Yami that his brother was screwing Shadi. He could go to Yugi, but of all of them, Yugi was the one he knew the least. He'd mostly seen the gang at duels, which meant he'd seen a lot more of Yami. He didn't even bother considering the rest of the crew. He could picture their reaction if he said that he was worried because Nisama was acting nicer than usual. Jonouchi would probably offer Shadi champagne – or at least a six-pack.

That left Anzu. The more Mokuba thought about it the better he liked the idea. She would listen. She wouldn't ask any awkward questions. And even if she couldn't help, talking to her would make him feel better. Of course tracking Anzu down meant seeing the rest of the gang. But Mokuba had that covered. They'd assume he wanted her for some kid thing. They should have known better, but Mokuba had lots of practice looking deceptively innocent.

"Anzu," Mokuba said when he was seated across from her in a booth at the burger place where she used to work. They were ignoring the noisy bunch seated in the back of the shop. "Do you know anything about Shadi? Can he like… do stuff to people's brains?"

Anzu paled. "Why are you asking?" she said urgently. "Has he come near you?"

"Not me. Nisama."

He saw her shoulders relax. It almost made him shut up then and there, and walk out of the restaurant.

"What's happened?" she asked, and the concern in her voice settled him back in his chair.

"Well, Shadi's been coming to the mansion at night to see Nisama," Mokuba said, hoping she didn't ask, "Why?"

" _What?"_ she yelled instead.

"He thinks Nisama's his friend… or something. You know, that whole past life thing."

"Your brother didn't kick Shadi out?" Anzu asked incredulously.

Mokuba shook his head, avoiding her eyes. "He let him stay," he finally mumbled. Mokuba knew Anzu had figured it out when she looked down and bit her lip.

"Shadi's very dangerous," Anzu warned. "He can go into people's minds and change them, just like you'd rearrange the furniture in your bedroom. If Kaiba's attracted his interest," she blushed faintly at the word, "your brother could be in real trouble. How has Kaiba changed?"

"He's just… not mad," Mokuba said somewhat helplessly. "He doesn't pace around his office yelling at the phone or the computer. He doesn't throw things. He _smiles_."

To her credit, Anzu didn't laugh at Mokuba's disclosures.

"That must be pretty upsetting for you," she said as carefully as she could.

Mokuba appreciated what Anzu was trying to do. He could hear Jounouchi's howls of laughter in his head, if the blond duelist had been the recipient of his confidence instead of Anzu. But there was also a challenge in his voice (after all he was a Kaiba) as he said, "I know it sounds dumb. It's everything I wanted for him. But he's the one who's got to make those changes in his life. Otherwise it's all wrong. When he's like this, he's not my Nisama. And I want my brother back. After everything that's happened, I can't lose him. Not now."

"You said the changes are only temporary," Anzu said reassuringly.

"For now. But how do I know that Shadi won't decide to rearrange things permanently one day?"

"Shadi definitely has the power, although it sounds like he's moving much more carefully than usual. He's never really used his powers for… well, for himself before… at least I don't think so…" Her voice trailed off. Then she nodded and said decisively, "The person who needs to know about this is Yami."

For the first time, Mokuba squirmed.

"Why don't I talk to Yugi?" Anzu suggested. Mokuba didn't look at her as he gave an infinitesimal nod. "And don't worry," Anzu added. "I won't say a word to the gang, and neither will Yugi. We'll figure something out. You just go home and look after your brother."

Mokuba gave her his first real smile of the night and left.

"So what'd the kid want?" Jounouchi asked as soon as Anzu joined them. "It can't be to invite us to Kaiba's next tournament. We're signed up already. Or does he have some new equipment or some crazy rule change?" Jounouchi asked.

"Nothing like that," Anzu said.

"What then? C'mon, spill it! Is Kaiba having a party for the tournament? That'd be cool."

"Yeah, right. Kaiba's having a big fancy party – and he wants to invite _us_. Get real," Honda said.

Jounouchi lunged across the table at his friend, sending drinks and food flying.

"You better tell us before they kill each other and we all get kicked out," Yugi said.

That got Jounouchi and Honda to stop wrestling and look up.

"It's nothing really. It was… personal," Anzu said, blushing a little.

"Mokuba's got a girlfriend… Mokuba's got a girlfriend!" Honda and Jounouchi chorused.

"I can't wait 'til the next time I see him," Jounouchi added.

Yugi took a look at Anzu's face and said, "Lay off Mokuba. How'd you like to be teased about your first crush?"

It was only after the group had split up, and Yugi was walking Anzu home that he said, "It's not a girl, is it?"

Anzu bit her lip. Mokuba hadn't made her promise – in fact he obviously wanted Yami to know. But Anzu didn't see what Yami could do. He was human now. It made him less mysterious… and in some ways even more unapproachable.

It was easier telling Yugi.

No more than Anzu, did Yugi doubt that Yami would want to know. It was Yami's reaction that Yugi feared. Nor did Yami fail to live up to his trepidations.

"Where are you going?" Yugi asked, knowing the answer.

"Where else? To the mansion."

"But Yami," Yugi protested. You're not a pharaoh anymore."

"Maybe not, but I'm still the King of Games."

"I'm serious, Yami. You gave that all up to stay here. You're going to be a sitting duck. You have no shadow powers. You're not a god."

" _What's in the hearts of men can surpass even God_ ," Yami quoted. "Kaiba said that. It's what allowed him to beat Isis that day, just as the modern world has replaced the ancient one. You're right. I have no special gifts beyond gamesmanship… no mystical abilities, no Millennium Items. But I will not accept that that makes me powerless, that I am unable to defend those I care for. My life is meaningless, then. I will test the boundaries of this new existence – and I will not be found wanting."

Yugi nodded and watched Yami walk out the door without protesting further. It wasn't that Yugi agreed. But he understood that Yami needed to do this – for his own sake as well as Kaiba's. Yugi couldn't help shaking his head though, and wondering why Yami's battles always seemed joined to Kaiba's.

Yami was surprised to be ushered into Mokuba's bedroom upon his arrival at the mansion. Mokuba was pacing the floor, looking remarkably like a miniature version of his formidable brother. Yami caught sight of the earpiece to a headphone peeking out from beneath Mokuba's hair.

Mokuba held up his hand. "Keep your voice down," he whispered. "Nisama and Shadi are right next door."

"What are you doing?" Yami asked.

"Listening in," Mokuba said as though that was obvious. He looked at Yami, and added, "You know?"

"Anzu told Yugi who told me. Why didn't you come to me yourself?" Yami's voice was as calm as ever, but Mokuba was experienced enough to catch the note of hurt.

"I didn't want to look in your face while you told me that you thought what Shadi was doing was right," Mokuba said.

Yami stared at him. "How could you think I would condone such a violation?" he asked.

"How's it any different from what you did at Death-T?" Mokuba shot back.

"There's every difference! At Death-T, your brother was a danger to everyone around him. You know this to be true. And Kaiba himself was trapped by the darkness he had been unwise enough to let into his heart." Yami held up a hand to stop Mokuba's protest. "I know why he did it. But even if his reasons started out being honorable, he was wrong. But there's a difference between my actions and Shadi's. I broke Kaiba's prison. I broke his soul back to its foundation. But I did not dictate the terms of its rebuilding."

"And what if he had chosen to be just like he was before?" Mokuba challenged.

"If necessary I would have killed him. But I swear to you, I would not have changed him against his will."

Mokuba chewed his lip. He was a little chilled at how casually Yami could speak of killing his brother, but he knew Nisama would approve. Then again, Mokuba disagreed with his brother more often than anyone knew.

"Mokuba," Yami said, "If I said that your brother and I were friends – would you contradict me?"

Mokuba thought about that. Yami had shattered his brother's heart, had put him in a coma, but his Nisama had come back to life with his rival's name on his lips. Mokuba thought of Duelists' Kingdom and Battle City and DOMA… how Yami and his brother always seemed to wind up on the same side; how they always seemed to be there just when the other needed to be yelled at. It wasn't friendship as Yugi and Jonouchi defined it. But Nisama had never set much store by other people's definitions.

"Let me help," Yami said.

"What do you think you can do?" Mokuba asked.

For the first time Yami looked hesitant. "I don't know," he said, finally. "But doing nothing is unacceptable. I want Kaiba to grow and change as much as you. But it must be on his terms and of his own volition."

Mokuba nodded again. "I'm not letting go of Nisama without a fight. As soon as Nisama's asleep, I'm going to confront Shadi."

"I'll come with you."

"No," Mokuba said. "I want to see if I can settle this first by myself. You know how Nisama is. But I wouldn't mind if you had my back."

"Of course," Yami assured him.

Mokuba nodded. "It's quiet in there. I'd better go before Shadi disappears."

Mokuba walked into his brother's room, leaving the connecting door open. He looked at the bed and froze. His brother was asleep. Shadi was dressed in his usual robes. He was leaning over the bed, smoothing the hair from Kaiba's face. There was no mistaking the soft expression on Shadi's own. Whatever motives Mokuba had assigned to Shadi's intrusions, tenderness had not been one of them.

Shadi looked up, and his movement freed Mokuba from his sudden stillness.

"Change him back!" Mokuba yelled.

* * *

 **  
_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing, and thanks to her and Kagemihari for letting me endlessly bounce ideas and for more encouragement than anyone deserves._   
**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I've often thought that is someone cared about Seto Kaiba, and had Shadi's power to rearrange soul room, the impulse to do a little redecorating on Kaiba – to take out some baggage, so to speak – would prove almost irresistible… even without Shadi's added incentive to turn the person he's with into the person he wants. This story is fairly short for me; it'll probably end up being four or five chapters. It feels a little odd to be working on something that feels complete with so few chapters, and that's considerably lighter in tone. To add to the internal confusion, I've been working on a longer story on virtual worlds at the same time, and it's definitely been interesting shuttling back and forth between the two. I write with the same basic cast of characters, but I try to write something new each time, and each story feels like a new beginning. If you've started this new trip with me, I hope you enjoy the ride.

As always, comments would be adored…


	2. Home Improvements

**CHAPTER 2:  HOME IMPROVEMENTS**

“Change him back!”  Mokuba yelled.

“I haven’t done anything to him tonight – yet,” Shadi replied.  “And I am indeed trying to change him back… to return him to the way he should be.  But it must be done carefully.  I don’t want to damage him further than this travesty of a life already has.”

“Now you’re going to pretend you’re helping?  That you care?””  Mokuba yelled, outraged.

“I do.”

“Bullshit!  You don’t care about my brother.  You don’t even know him!”

“I love Seto.  I have always loved him.”

“My brother’s name is _Kaiba_.”

“No, that’s the veneer that covers his true self.  It is suffocating him.  I’m trying to remove it, but it’s proving surprisingly difficult.”

“You have no right!  Change him back!” Mokuba yelled as if the force of his voice could convince Shadi to listen.

“Why?” Shadi asked in honest puzzlement.

“Because this gentle cage diminishes him,” Yami said quietly, entering the room.

“Don’t you understand?  I’m doing what must be done.  I’m trying to return him to his true self.”

“He is no longer the High Priest.  This form _is_ his true self.”

“What do you know of truth or identity, _Yami?_ ”  Shadi said the name as though it was an insult.  “You were offered the chance to regain your memories, a chance to rejoin your comrades in the after-life – and you rejected it.”

 “I chose change.  I chose life.  I will not believe that my choice was wrong.”

“Life?  You are more of a shadow now then you ever were.  Even the name you have chosen after rejecting your true one means darkness.  You say that I have diminished Seto?  Look first at what you have done to yourself.”

“My heart is undiminished,” Yami replied.

“Your heart?” Shadi sneered.  “That is what this is about, isn’t it?  Are you going to pretend that your interest in Seto is in fact, disinterested?  You’re simply angry that I have what you desire.  And yet – you don’t even remember your high priest, do you?”

“No,” Yami said shortly.  “You know that was the agreement.  I am done chasing memories; I gave them up to remain here.  Someone once told me that it is the future that  matters.”

“I should have expected you.  Did you even want him again, until he became mine?” Shadi asked bitterly. 

“If Kaiba was truly yours, you would not need to resort to this shabby cheat.  Nor would you want to bind his mind.”

“You had your chance.”

“I died before I was 20 in a past I don’t remember,” Yami said.

“I’m not talking about the ancient world, but about this modern one you profess to love so much that you forsook your memories and the comrades who had waited 3,000 years for you, to join it.”

“I was reborn as a spirit, in a body not my own.  I didn’t even know who I was,” Yami said.

“And what is stopping you now?  You have been free to pursue your desire for months.  Why was I the one in America, and not you?  Or is it simply that having renounced being a pharaoh, you still expected him to be your subject?”

“Kaiba needed peace and quiet to sort through his thoughts, without my interference,”  Yami said.  He didn’t add that he too had needed time; had needed to become accustomed to having a life before he’d been ready to share it.  So all he added was, “The time did not seem right.”

“It never does.  But I’m done waiting on time.  I’ve accepted an endless life of vigilance, guarding the Millennium Items in perpetuity.  Must I also go through this eternity alone?  Is it too much to ask for a companion, even for the brief span that he lives?  You have a second chance at life.  Would you deny me this?”

“He is not the Seto you knew – and you don’t have the right to turn him into the person you want, instead of the man he is,” Yami replied.

 _‘Pretend I’m your dead friend all you want.  You can even scream out his name.  Just as long as you don’t forget – I’m not him.’_

Kaiba’s words at their first meeting flashed through Shadi’s mind, made him retort angrily, “And what ‘right’ have I taken from him?  The right to be vengeful, unhappy and misguided?  The right to blunder self-destructively through his life?”

“Even those rights are his.  But you left one out – the right to chart his own course.  And that is a right Kaiba will never relinquish.”

Mokuba’s glance had been flicking from Shadi to Yami, then back to his brother’s sleeping face.  “Hey! How come he’s still asleep?” Mokuba asked suddenly.  “We’ve been yelling like crazy and my brother sleeps like a cat.  What’s going on?  What have you done to him?

“I told you, nothing yet.  Changing his soul room is a delicate operation.  I have merely insured that he would remain asleep while I worked to heal him.”

“Heal him?  Stop bullshitting me!” Mokuba yelled.  “If you were so sure what you were doing was right, you wouldn’t be sneaking around.  You’d have told my brother flat out what you were planning and asked his permission.  And he’d have kicked you out on your ass!”

“He’ll be happier when I have finished.  You’ll be grateful,” Shadi said.

“But he won’t be my brother!  When Pegasus stole his soul, at least he didn’t pretend he _cared_.”

“How can I care and not try to help?”  Shadi turned to Yami.  “You told him yourself that he had to rid himself of his demons if he was to move forward.  How is this any different?”

“Because you can’t force contentment on him, not if he is to be true to himself.  And for all your power, you haven’t succeeded, have you?  Nor will you.  You may be able to destroy him.  You will never be able to make him your puppet,” Yami stated.

“What will stop me?”

“The power of the human soul and heart is something stronger than even shadow magic.”

Shadi laughed. “Do you truly believe that _Kaiba_ , who values nothing but power; who has no allegiance to the gods or even his ancient homeland to temper him, will respond to something as puny as the human spirit?  You had to shatter his heart to change it.  Without resorting to the powers that you renounced, can you have the audacity to believe that in this insignificant form, you can accomplish what it once took all your shadow powers to effect?  You may no longer be touched by the gods… but you have the arrogance of one.”

“You speak eloquently.  But are you willing to put your fine words to the test?  My position is clear, and I am willing to defend it with everything in me.  Do you accept?”

Shadi laughed again.  “Do you truly believe me foolish enough to tamely submit to whatever snare you think you have devised?”

“You may set the parameters.  The only right I reserve is the choice of the battlefield itself – within the hearts of Kaiba and myself.”

“You dare to challenge me?  To boast that your human heart is greater than the gods and the shadow powers they bestowed upon us – a gift that you rejected.  Perhaps it is time for you to learn what true diminishment is!”

For a moment Mokuba thought he must have blinked, because all of a sudden, Yami wasn’t there.

Then he looked down.

“Oh, no…” Mokuba said, staring at the 9 inch figure, the size and dimension of a doll, standing as proudly as ever on Kaiba’s blue bedroom rug.  He blinked, but it was still there; the tiny, tri-colored head was unmistakable.  He bent down and picked up the diminutive King of Games.

“I take it this means my challenge has been accepted.” Yami smirked.

“Oh, no…” Mokuba mumbled again.

Shadi growled at that, realizing that for all his powers, he’d been neatly trapped.

“Agreed.  But you have given up on puzzles, so how will you solve this one?  How can you hope to find the lever that will make me reverse this?  I can be patient and let you realize your own uselessness for yourself.  I will leave Seto untouched until that time.”

Yami nodded.

“Tell me, are you as confident as you appear?” Shadi asked.

“To borrow a chess term, this is but the opening gambit,” Yami said as Shadi disappeared. 

“Oh, Yami… I’m so sorry.  I should never have gotten you involved… I never thought…” Mokuba said, a touch incoherently.

“This was Shadi’s doing, not yours,” Yami said, dismissing what had just happened as if it was no more important than a set-back in a duel.

“I never meant for you to get hurt like this… honest…”

“Will your brother notice when Shadi stops coming over?” Yami interrupted.

“I doubt it,” Mokuba said.

Yami quirked an eyebrow at that.

“I don’t think Nisama ever thought of Shadi as anything more than a convenience.  I mean Nisama never mentioned him to me, for one thing, and he would have if he thought Shadi was important.”  Possibly Mokuba felt the need to defend his brother, because he added challengingly, “I’m sure Nisama was up front with Shadi.  A lot more honest than Shadi was with him!”

Yami nodded, wondering how much of the conversation Mokuba had picked up on.  “I’m sure he was,” Yami said reassuringly.  “Your brother would be honorable in all his dealings.  He would never promise more than he intended to deliver.”

“You aren’t going to tell him about this, are you…” Mokuba said.  It was not quite a question.

“Not unless I have to.”

“He has a right to know.”

“Then why haven’t you told him yourself?”

“I wanted to make sure, first,” Mokuba mumbled.

“And you didn’t want to tell Kaiba that the first, tiny morsel of trust he has ever expended was so misplaced.   You didn’t want to tell him he had been a fool, and had been betrayed. or in truth, Kaiba was betrayed, but this was possibly the least foolish thing he has done.”

Yami hoped Mokuba would accept his answer without question.  For there had been just enough truth in Shadi’s accusations of jealousy to make him shy away from exposing his rival to the man they both desired.

“Like Nisama’s going to look at it like that,” Mokuba scoffed.  But he didn’t argue further.  After all he had spent his lifetime lying to his brother.  At Death-T he’d even been willing to kill rather than tell his brother he was wrong.  And Yami, who was just as proud and commanding as his brother, had let himself be turned into an action figure.  The way Mokuba saw it, he owed Yami big time.  The least he could do was obey Yami’s wishes – especially when they coincided with his own.  And more to the point, Mokuba was willing to go along with anything that delayed the moment when he had to confess the whole sorry mess to his brother.

“In another second, that’s not going to be our only problem,” Mokuba added, nodding towards the bed.

As if in answer, Kaiba abruptly turned over and sat up, the midnight blue sheets pooling in his lap.  Yami had always thought Kaiba thin.  Now he saw that the proper word was ‘wiry.’  Kaiba shook his head like a dog shaking off water, except that the motion was too graceful to be canine.

“Mokuba! Is everything okay?” Kaiba asked urgently, seeing his brother in his bedroom.  He looked around for a minute then relaxed as he noted Shadi’s absence.

Mokuba opened his mouth only to realize that there was no way to answer that particular question.  Luckily (or not) Kaiba’s attention had already been caught by the small figure in Mokuba’s hands.

“You came in here this early just to show me a Yugi Mutou doll?” Kaiba asked, grabbing the diminutive figure.

“No! He’s not a Yugi doll,” Mokuba said.

“You’re right!” Kaiba interrupted.  “It’s not Yugi… it’s the other one.  Pretty impressive workmanship.  They even got the eye color right.  I don’t know why they bothered making him doll size.  He’s little enough as it is.”

Yami glared at that.

“Did you see him change expression?” Kaiba said excitedly, his attention focused on the 9 inch figure in his hands.  “He’s animatronic.  And look at this, they even got the part of his hair that sticks straight up right,” Kaiba said, pulling on it.

“Stop that!” Yami ordered.

“It talks!  I wonder how many expressions are programmed into it,” Kaiba continued, not noticing Mokuba staring at him helplessly.

“Uh.. Nisama…” he started.

“He’s amazingly life-like for a doll,” Kaiba continued.

“I am not a doll!” Yami protested.

“Action figure then.  Whatever.  I wonder if it’s anatomically correct.  I can’t wait to see what it does when I get its clothes off,” Kaiba grinned, reaching for Yami with his free hand.

Yami smacked his finger away.

“Hrmph,” Kaiba snorted.  “They finally got something wrong.  Cocksure as that arrogant bastard is, I bet he’d jump at the chance to strut his stuff.”

“And you’d lose… as usual,” Yami replied.

Kaiba growled at that, before reminding himself that he was talking to a toy.  “It even recognizes key words,” he said thoughtfully.  “Like matching ‘bet’ with lose.”

“Nisama, you’ve got to listen…”

“In a minute, Mokuba.  I’m trying to figure something out here.”

He reached for Yami again, frowning as Yami once again smacked his finger and repeated, “Stop that!”

“This is one really odd piece of programming.  As sophisticated as its other reactions are, I’d expect it to have a wider range of responses,” Kaiba said, reaching out for a third time.

Yami did the only thing he could think of.  He bit Kaiba’s forefinger.  Hard.

“Stop this foolishness immediately, Seto Kaiba!” he yelled.

Kaiba’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “How did it know my name?”  He turned to Mokuba.  “Did you program this?”

“Program… no, Nisama… I’ve been trying to tell you… you’ve got it all wrong…”

“Damn it, Mokuba, if you didn’t program it, who did?  Anyone could have sent it to us.  It could be recording everything we’re saying.  Well, there’s one way to find out what makes it tick… where’s my toolkit…”  Kaiba said as he threw Yami on the bed.  He jumped up, went to his desk, and opened a drawer.

“What are you going to do?” Mokuba asked, as Yami righted himself on the bed.

“Take it apart and inspect the circuitry… and pry out its microchip, so I can get a look at its programming,” Kaiba said as he picked up his tool kit.

Given that Kaiba had spent the night with Shadi, Yami had realized that under the thin silk sheet, the taller man was probably naked.  Yami was stunned anyway by the sight of him.  Kaiba was beautiful, in the way that a honed weapon is sometimes beautiful.  Unclothed, you could see the play of muscles as he stretched, as he moved with an unconscious, feline grace across the room.  Yami was enjoying the sight of Kaiba’s unselfconscious beauty until Kaiba picked up his toolkit and headed back to bed, wearing only a very purposeful expression.

Kaiba sat on the bed and pulled Yami into his lap; his miniature feet were braced against Kaiba’s groin. 

Mokuba grabbed Kaiba’s right arm – the one holding the pliers – and yelled, “Nisama! Stop!”

Kaiba wrenched his arm free.  “What’s the matter, Mokuba?  Just wait until I get its head off, and then we can talk.  Don’t worry, I’ll put it back together, once I’ve made sure everything’s all right.”

“Stop!  Nisama, it’s not a toy!  It really is Yami!”

Kaiba held up the figure to examine it more closely.  “Prove it,” he said, looking like he was ready to tear off an arm just to prove his brother wrong.

Yami lifted his head.  The gesture was too individual to belong to a mass produced toy.  “The card you gave me at Alcatraz was ‘Devil’s Sanctuary.’  I claim sanctuary, now.”

“You have it,” Kaiba said automatically.  He opened and shut his mouth, then looked at the diminutive King of Games and said, “What the hell?”

“Don’t ask.  Not tonight,” Yami said with a sigh.

Kaiba snapped his lips shut, trapping his questions safely inside.  Yami had asked for sanctuary.  He’d granted it.  To his way of thinking, if answering questions was the price of admission, then it was no true haven.  So Kaiba opened his mouth only long enough to ask, “Is there anything you need?”

“I’d like to call Yugi.”

Kaiba raised an eyebrow at that.  “He doesn’t know?”

Yami shook his head.

 _“What?”_   The word almost escaped before Kaiba caught it.  “I guess, all things considered, it’d be pretty _small_ of me to pry,” he observed instead, accepting Yami’s second bite of the evening as a fair return on his remark.

“Nisama!” Mokuba yelled.  But Yami had recovered his temper.

“Thank you, Kaiba,” he said.

Kaiba wasn’t sure if Yami was thanking him for not ripping his head off earlier, or for not pressing him for explanations now.  Either way, he shrugged.

“I’ve never seen you stopped by a setback yet,” he said, surprising himself by voicing so saccharine a sentiment – and surprised to realize it was true.

 

* * *

 

 ** _Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter._**   I have to apologize too.  I made a bunch of changes to the first chapter after getting it back from her and decided, erroneously as it turns out, that I didn’t need for her to look it over again.  So I wanted to make it clear that any mistakes were my own fault.

 **AUTHOR’S NOTE:**   This story comes with a story.  Ages ago, as part of a story spinner challenge on the Pharaoh’s Palace who’s deadline passed years ago, I saw a doujinshi frame of High Priest Seto holding a tiny Pharaoh Atemu in his hand.  For some reason I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that Atemu was about to bite Seto’s thumb.

Given how charmingly ridiculous the drawing was, I’m not sure why I immediately tried to think of a plausible way a mini-Yami could end up biting Kaiba’s hand.  And then I started to wonder of course, what would happen next to both Yami and Kaiba.…

And I have to admit, the more I thought about it, the funnier the idea of a mini-Yami was, not to mention Kaiba’s probable reaction.  So of course, I couldn’t resist taking it to its logical (or illogical) extreme.

Any comments would be adored…


	3. House Calls

**CHAPTER 3: HOUSE CALLS**

Whatever questions Kaiba may have had – and he had many – when Yugi arrived, he left them alone downstairs while he got ready for work, to all appearances disinterested in whatever explanations Yami might have been offering his partner.

"At least your voice is still the same. It's not all squeaky," Yugi said.

Yami marveled at Yugi's ability to focus on the bright side of any situation. His voice, in fact, was still slightly deeper than Yugi's own.

"What happened?" Yugi asked.

Yami's sigh was full-sized too.

"Mokuba was right. Shadi was trying to re-arrange Kaiba's personality, to make it more like the Seto he remembered."

"I meant, what happened _to you?_ "

"Shadi and I got into an argument as to whether my choice to remain here had diminished me. This was his way of emphasizing his point."

"What can we do to fix it? It's a game right? There must be a way to win."

Yami smiled at the unconscious use of the word, 'we.'

"No, it's not permanent," Yami said. "It's a challenge. There must be a way to force Shadi to undo this. He would not cheat once he had accepted my dare."

"Do you want me to take you home?" Yugi asked, wondering if his pockets were deep enough. Somehow it seemed disrespectful to ask for a shopping bag to carry his friend.

"No. Kaiba is the focal point for Shadi's spell. I need to stay here and figure it out. I just didn't want you to worry."

"You didn't want me to worry…" Yugi said faintly.

"You said it yourself – this is a game we will win. It feels like there's something I should know… should remember…. Perhaps it will come to me. That would be like Shadi, wouldn't it? He was furious at my choice, at my giving up my memories to remain here. It would be like him to create a riddle I need my memories to solve."

"That would be a low trick," Yugi said. "What're you going to do now?"

"Try and figure it out."

"Okay, let's get Kaiba in here and start planning…"

Yami shook his head. "No."

"What? Why?"

"Kaiba was asleep when Shadi and I had our debate."

Yugi's jaw dropped. "You mean he doesn't know any of this?" he asked.

Yami shook his miniature head again.

"Okay, now I get why Kaiba didn't greet me at the door with a rant about staying out of his business, but why on earth didn't you tell him? What could you have possibly said to explain all of this – especially since I know you didn't lie."

"I didn't say anything. Kaiba didn't ask."

"I guess I see your point," Yugi said. "Do you remember how mad he got over Mokuba coming to us when he was stuck in that video game? Just imagine how much worse he'd react to this."

Yami nodded, pleased that Yugi had clearly decided to drop the matter. Yugi, for his part was equally satisfied that his answer had calmed his partner. Yugi knew he wasn't getting the whole story. After all, the thought of Kaiba throwing a fit had never deterred Yami before. But in the face of this new disaster, he couldn't bring himself to say anything else.

Yami looked at Yugi, for the first time uncomfortable, for the first time seeming small… "Partner, if you could…"

"Don't worry. I'll break the news to the others. I'll come back after school."

Yami's first day was a trying one. Kaiba had taken him to work, set up a laptop sensitive enough for Yami to use, and then, except for occasional speculative glances, had ignored the miniature duelist, leaving Yami with little to do but listen intermittently to Kaiba's end of a seemingly interminable series of telephone calls about his upcoming tournament. He was negotiating, or more accurately barking instructions, on an endless catalogue of items – scheduling, accommodations, invitations, logistics – that had, to Yami's way of thinking, absolutely nothing to do with dueling. The thought of spending his days like this made Yami wonder if he'd discovered the cause of the other duelist's legendary bad temper. The only break Kaiba seemed to take was to pull up something on his computer monitor that looked like the plans for a space station, but was probably the latest proposed revisions to his duel disk.

It was boring and fascinating at the same time. Duel Monsters tournaments had simply appeared in Yami's life, as natural as rain in spring. Yugi had been invited; they'd competed; they'd won. He'd never thought about the process of setting up a tournament before, any more than he'd ever analyzed the mechanics of photosynthesis when smelling a flower.

Kaiba's seeming absorption should have given Yami time to think, to focus on the solution to his situation. But he had a hard time focusing on anything but the troubling, infuriating idea that he should already know the answer.

Not that Kaiba paid enough attention to his now-miniature rival to notice.

Kaiba wasn't being intentionally cruel. He just had no practice at being anything else. So he'd ignore Yami, only to sweep him into the desk drawer when people entered the room, without thinking of the staple removers, scissors and mechanical pencils that lay in wait. He'd thrust Yami (head first) into his trench coat pocket, causing Yami to reflect that however much he might appreciate the man he'd come to think of as a human dragon, he had no wish for a closer acquaintance with a Blue Eyes White Dragon key chain.

Yami didn't complain. He'd rather have been skewered by a mechanical pencil point than sue for mercy… or even remind Kaiba that, appearances aside, he wasn't a toy.

But Kaiba must have found the morning as unsatisfying as Yami, because he left before lunchtime – not that he ever bothered eating lunch anyway. And when Kaiba pulled Yami out of his pocket once they were safely back at the mansion, he couldn't help but notice that the other duelist was looking a little worse for wear.

"You ready for lunch?" Kaiba asked gruffly, picking the lint out of Yami's hair.

"Lunch?"

"Yeah. Your room should be ready."

"My room?" This conversation was making less and less sense to Yami, although at Kaiba's words he realized how hungry and tired he was. It was only early afternoon, but it'd been a long day.

When they reached Kaiba's bedroom Yami saw what Kaiba had meant. A low table had been moved next to Kaiba's bed. On it was a one story doll house. It was ingeniously done. Half the rooms were ceiling-less, so that Mokuba or Kaiba could look in. The other rooms, including the bedroom and a bathroom, complete with its own plumbing system, were roofed, affording privacy.

Yami walked through the open area. There was a dining room, set with a table for one, and complete with plates, bowls, and a choice of silverware or chopsticks.

"Kaiba," Yami said, but the tall duelist had already turned away.

"It's amazing the amount of shit they sell for dolls nowadays. Maybe I'm in the wrong business," Kaiba said.

There was a knock at the door. Kaiba answered it and returned with a tray. He moved minutely chopped portions of beef and vegetables to an equally downsized bowl on Yami's dollhouse's dining room table, and placed his own, slightly larger version at the end of the table. Yami wondered what on earth the chef had thought, unless of course, he was so deeply in shock that Kaiba had come home early and requested lunch, that he was incapable of thinking anything at all.

Kaiba had never quite had a meal like this one – and it wasn't only because his lunch companion was in a dollhouse. His usual habit was to race through meals as quickly as possible; he hated wasting any more time than necessary on such a mundane chore. Kaiba was used to sitting through business lunches and dinners of course, but this was different: a meal consumed with someone who was neither a business associate nor Mokuba. Kaiba gave no clue at how unprecedented this all was, and yet his thoughts on the meal were much the same as Yami's on his newly acquired doll sized chair: both were surprisingly comfortable.

"I never did thank you," Yami said as they finished eating.

"For what?" Kaiba responded.

"The driver's license, the identity cards, the birth certificate, the high school diploma… all the paraphernalia of establishing who I am, delivered to my doorstep after we got home from Egypt. You were the only one who could have done it."

"Think of it as another Shadow Game – a modern one. It's amazing how many people mistake information for truth."

"I didn't even realize you knew we were gone. I never told you what had happened," Yami said. "I should have called."

"What would you have said?" Kaiba asked.

"I don't know. Yugi was always the one who knew what to say to friends."

Kaiba shrugged. "No thanks are necessary. I was repaying a debt. You gave me back my identity too, didn't you?"

"Is that truly all you were doing?"

Kaiba grimaced, wondering why it was even harder to lie to Yami in this state, as if honesty was the one gift he could not refuse to grant.

"No," he said.

"Then you're right," Yami said with a smile. "No thanks are necessary. They never are – between friends. We will get through this together, as well."

"Get through this? You didn't lose?" It was as close as Kaiba would allow himself to come to asking what had happened. Irksome as it was, he had promised.

"The game continues," Yami said, hoping Kaiba would accept his answer without comment. He jumped as the intercom buzzer sounded. The butler announced Mokuba's arrival home. Kaiba picked Yami up and they went to meet Mokuba in the living room.

Mokuba took one look at Yami and scowled. Nothing had gone the way he'd planned. He'd come to think of Yami as the guy who could fix anything. But maybe, he realized as he stared at Yami, it would have been better if he'd remembered just how fucked up things could get on the way to being fixed a little bit earlier. At least his brother was safe, and maybe Yami could arrange one more miracle – and soon, before they had to clue his brother in. Luckily before Kaiba noticed his brother's unusual silence, the intercom sounded again. Kaiba answered and turned to Yami.

"Speaking of getting through annoying times – your friends are here," Kaiba said, a slight emphasis on the word, 'your.'

Part of Yami wanted to hide from his friends. He didn't want to hear their exclamations of surprise and pity. But that would have been cowardly. He had accepted and benefited from their encouragement in the past; that left him with an obligation to accept their concern now.

"Shit! Just look at you! Don't worry, Yami. We'll figure out a solution," Jounouchi said as he bounded into the room with Honda, Yugi and Anzu following behind. "No way are we leaving you all shrunk like that."

"For you to figure anything out, you'd have to think first," Kaiba observed. "Well, at least all the unaccustomed activity will keep you busy and out of the way."

"Hi, Yami," Yugi said, ignoring the combatants.

Anzu gave Yami a weak smile and a wave. She glanced at Kaiba and kept her mouth shut tightly, as though afraid a secret would slip out.

"Come on, Yugi – let's take Yami and head back to the Game Shop," Jounouchi said.

"I'm not letting _you_ take him anywhere," Kaiba said dismissively. "You'd probably trade him in for a hamburger."

"Shut up Kaiba! This is probably all your fault to begin with!" Jounouchi shouted.

"Don't be ridiculous. I haven't been responsible for the destruction of life for two years now." Kaiba's words were sarcastic, but he was slightly white around the lips.

"Then how the hell did he end up like this?" Jounouchi challenged.

"Like what? Oh yeah, I guess he is a little shorter than usual," Kaiba said with his usual smirk, possibly pleased to be doing something as familiar as baiting Jounouchi.

"Stop fucking around!"

"It's up to Yami what information he chooses to divulge," Kaiba said. It was just like the mutt, he thought, to come yapping at him for answers when Yugi and Yami were sitting right there.

Yami shut his eyes. "It's not a matter of trust, Kaiba."

Kaiba's lips tightened further, but he managed to keep his voice even as he said, "It doesn't matter, Yami."

"I swear it."

Kaiba looked at him and nodded, but Yami wasn't fooled. Kaiba was wearing the expressionless mask he usually reserved for dueling unknown opponents.

Jounouchi took the opportunity to say to Yugi (in what he hoped was an undertone), "Let's grab him quick and get out of here."

Yugi smiled but said," "You know we can't do that."

"C'mon Yugi – you've got to be crazy to even consider leaving him. Kaiba doesn't know the first thing about friendship."

"No, but he knows everything about devotion and hanging tough," Mokuba shot back. The way Jounouchi always seemed to forget he was trashing Seto in front of his kid brother had Mokuba wondering if he really was as dumb as his Nisama insisted. Mokuba looked at his brother and was relieved to see he'd walked to the window, ignoring the noisy group in his living room… clearly preferring his own thoughts, whatever they were, to the chore of listening to Yugi and his friends.

Yugi's head was down; streaks of yellow hair were covering his face as he said, "It's not my decision. It's Yami's, and I'm not going to even try to interfere. If they're going to have any chance…" Yugi's voice trailed off, and he pressed his lips together. "They need to do this together," Yugi finished after a pause.

"I can put two and two together. This must have something to do with whatever Mokuba…" Jounouchi continued.

Yami considered walking across the couch and biting Jounouchi, but somehow that action had become associated with Kaiba in his mind.

"Jounouchi," Yugi said. "Don't interfere. Please."

"I'll figure it out," Yami said, his old authority back in his voice – and with no indication of how desperately he was clinging to his own certainty.

But his confidence, real or feigned, was enough to send Jounouchi, Honda, and Anzu home eventually in a slightly happier frame of mind. Yugi stayed behind.

Unsurprisingly, dinner was an awkward affair. Yugi looked like he was trying to restrain himself from cuddling Yami as if he was a favorite stuffed animal; Mokuba was too busy trying not to look guilty to spare much thought for anything else. Only Kaiba was being his normally argumentative self, as if determined to prove he wasn't going to cut his rival any slack just because he was now only 9 inches tall.

It was only after Yugi had left, Mokuba was asleep, and Kaiba and Yami were talking that Kaiba discovered – and was shocked by – an impulse to censor his own words.

"How can you… never mind… it's not important," Kaiba said.

"What?" Yami asked, a familiar hint of challenge in his voice.

Kaiba paused, still disconcerted by his own impulse to be kind. Kaiba knew how he was supposed to feel. His rival – the only person ever to have beaten him – was now a fucking doll. He was _Kaiba_. He was supposed to gloat. Because even if he hadn't exactly won, Yami had undeniably lost. And yet, the little figure standing as proudly as ever on his night table didn't seem to know that he'd been defeated. This was just another move in another game. The fine vestigial hairs on Kaiba's arms stood up; the strength of will implied in Yami's unconscious gesture was electrifying. Kaiba felt charged, the way he'd always felt just a little more fired up while dueling Yami – even though all they were doing at the moment was sitting in his bedroom talking. He frowned at his own stray thoughts and focused on the matter at hand: was it kindness to censor his own words as if Yami was too small to bear up under them? He'd always believed that mercy and contempt were intertwined, and that was the one emotion he refused to feel for Yami.

"How can you carry on as if this is all okay with you? Where's your anger? Your pride?" he finally asked.

"Anger clouds judgment. Did you think every time I screamed that at you I was parroting empty words? Did you think me a hypocrite? As for pride…"

Yami paused, drowning the flash of anger he'd just shown. "My pride is as full-sized as ever. But there is something that's just as expansive – faith – in myself and in others, to win through. And that is so great it crowds out everything."

"What if that fails you?"

"It can't. How can it let me down? It's the thing that sustains me."

"Some times the things that feel the most a part of us are the things that fail us the worst. The things that helped us survive are the ones we must, in the end, erase."

"I heard you locked your deck in a vault – that you're not dueling in your upcoming tournament." Yami's voice rose slightly, making almost a question – or an invitation to talk.

Kaiba nodded.

"I couldn't imagine it… dueling is so much a part of you," Yami said.

"When I duel, I can feel the anger, hatred and bitterness all rising to the surface. You rightly named them my demons. I almost killed Mokuba because of them. I'm going to destroy them once and for all, even if I have to starve them into submission to do it."

"Kaiba, you can't banish your demons by cutting out the things you love doing along with them."

"Why not?"

For the first time, Yami wondered just how much damage Kaiba might have done to himself, had he Shadi's powers.

"Because you're amputating a part of your soul! That's not any less of a mutilation, just because your hand is the one holding the knife."

"I had to do something." Kaiba said stubbornly. "You even told me that. Why are you arguing with me now?"

"I never meant for that 'something' to sever you from dueling."

"My decisions are my own – and they're none of your fucking business!"

"Are you telling me not to care? Stop denying that we're friends! I want you to face the challenges in your life, not avoid them," Yami said.

Kaiba wanted to deny their friendship with all his heart. He suddenly hated everything about their association, but most of all the feeling that he had somehow given Yami the right to care about him. There's no way to storm out of one's own bedroom without looking like a bit of a fool, but Kaiba almost did it anyway. But Yami wouldn't be able to follow and continue the fight. And that one thing was enough to keep Kaiba in the room, even as he indulged in the image of Yami, standing marooned and helpless, in his doll house.

"Are you saying I'm afraid?" Kaiba demanded.

"Not of the usual things."

"Not of anything!"

"You knew you could trust us after Duelists' Kingdom. You admitted as much. But when your Board of Directors trapped you in that virtual world, you would have let yourself rot there rather than ask for the help you knew we would rush to give. Then in Noa's World, you walked away every time we tried to come to your aid."

Kaiba's muscles twitched in protest, but once again, he restrained himself from bolting out. He compromised by getting up and pacing the confines of his room, before returning to face Yami.

"I learned not to rely on help, not to depend on anyone but myself. It's a hard lesson to unlearn, especially since trust can only be applied on such rare occasions, like a formal suit donned only for contract signings – while distrust is like a trench coat that can be worn in any weather. But you know that as well as I – since you haven't said a word about how you ended up like this."

Looking at Kaiba's averted face, Yami knew he had made a disastrous blunder when he had decided to keep silent on last night's chain of events. But even as he opened his mouth to confess, he realized this was one wrong that could not be immediately righted. Yami couldn't so cavalierly reveal the secret Mokuba had kept at his request – not without first talking to his young co-conspirator. Whatever he did, it seemed he was guaranteed to end up shortchanging a Kaiba brother – and he knew which one Kaiba would prefer he kept faith with.

"Your pardon, Kaiba. You're right. That's my failing, not yours," he said.

Kaiba wondered how he'd won the argument so easily… and why it was so unsatisfying. After all, Yami's secrets were his business, not Kaiba's. He should have been delighted at the chance to throw Yami's hypocrisy back in his face; thrilled to hear Yami's voice take on that apologetic tone. But somehow losing the brief sense of rapport they'd shared– as brief as the moments of camaraderie that had followed so many of their duels – had hurt more.

Kaiba nodded curtly, his lips aching with the effort of holding back the words: 'But you told Yugi.' He was being foolish and he knew it. Yami and Yugi had always been surrounded by an invisible fence that no one could jump over; he'd never wanted to. So there was no reason to be surprised, much less bothered, to find that hadn't changed even now that they were in separate bodies.

"At Alcatraz, I didn't need to see your card to put it in my deck – even with mine and Yugi's lives on the line. Please believe my silence isn't because of a lack of trust in you," Yami said. "I knew last night, the moment I asked for sanctuary, you'd give it. I have no right to ask, but let me trespass on your limited store of patience and faith for one more day."

It was an opening… a weakness even. Yami had left a drop of his blood in the water and Kaiba knew it was his cue to attack. But he liked hearing Yami's words, liked having that feeling of companionship steal over him again. Even as he was surrendering to it, he was confused by the impulse that led him to say, "That's twice today you've apologized for not clueing me in on your latest body update. What happened the first time?"

Luckily Yami was quicker in seizing the unexpected olive branch than Kaiba was in realizing he'd offered it in the first place (or he might have been tempted to snatch it back). Yami was grateful that Kaiba had asked a question he could answer.

"We went to Egypt. We had a mission, Yugi and I."

Kaiba snorted. "Just can't stop trying to save the world, can you? It's a bad habit."

Yami ignored Kaiba's snide comment with the ease of long practice. "We dueled the enemies from the battle I'd fought 3,000 years ago – the one that had resulted in my being sealed in the puzzle in the first place. I didn't even remember who I had been then. I never found out."

"You must have remembered enough to win."

"I'm not sure that's a game that will ever end. But my mission here was finished, my ancient enemies were banished. I had one more duel – with Yugi – to determine whether it was time for me to return to the shadows or begin a life here."

"I take it you won."

Yami smiled. "It was a tie."

"So you really have no memories?"

"I could only pick one – a past or a future. I was unsure which road to take. Then I thought of you saying that people who don't carry their future within themselves have no light."

"You remembered that?" Kaiba looked startled.

"I remembered the way you looked – like you had just found something you were never letting go of. My name might mean darkness, but I didn't want to let go of that light any more than you. It's the light I feel when we duel."

Kaiba thought about talking of his past at Alcatraz, about talking of light and darkness at DOMA. Why did the strangest situations always seem to bring out his honesty?

"I know. I feel more alive when you're in the arena, like each battle has meaning," he said.

"And I feel tall," Yami said with a smile. He stopped, feeling like a puzzle piece had just slipped through his fingers.

Kaiba grinned, but said, "I meant it."

"So did I," answered Yami.

Kaiba nodded, unsure of what to say. He felt an impulse to ask Yami again how he had wound up like this, to press him for the answer he sensed was inches away, but the mood was so unexpectedly companionable, and it was such a new feeling, he didn't want to break it.

Yami walked into his bedroom. Kaiba turned off the overhead lights. He sat on his bed, staring at the closed bedroom door. He was vaguely glad he didn't have to worry about Shadi popping in for a while. Kaiba had enjoyed the whole bizarreness of his encounters with Shadi…. The way the other man would suddenly appear in his bedroom or office when the rest of Domino was long asleep… how he'd disappear the same way before Kaiba awoke… giving their encounters the feel of one of Mokuba's horror movies.

Here was danger of a different kind. Sitting with Yami, talking with him was just as exciting. He couldn't put his finger on why Yami had always had him so keyed up, as if Yami's regard was somehow different, better even, but he wasn't denying it either. It existed. It was as real as the miniature figure asleep in a doll house in his room, and as unexpected.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** One thing I've always found interesting about the idea of Yami in a separate body, is that it made me aware of just how much of the relating to people stuff Yugi does for the both of them. We know Yami cares deeply for Yugi's friends, but he rarely interacts with them for any length of time, his caring is usually expressed by his actions in duels rather than in words. Some of this, of course, is because it _is_ Yugi's body, and Yami is simply seen a lot more rarely. But I also wonder if it's a bit outside of Yami's comfort zone to interact with anyone besides Yugi, with whom he already has such a symbiotic relationship. Anyway, I wanted to show Yami branching out a bit here, extending his range, even while physically its gotten a lot smaller. In a slightly related note, I think part of what makes his exchanges with Kaiba in Yugioh so interesting for me is the challenging nature of their conversations – even if the challenge is often simply in the challenge of differing ideas.

As usual, comments would be adored...


	4. Home Wrecking

**CHAPTER 4: HOME WRECKING**

Yami spent far too much of the night staring at his closed bedroom door, thinking of the man beyond it.

Shadi had turned Yami into a living, breathing, action figure. But Yami's own feeling of guilt had managed to accomplish what all Shadi's powers could not. For it was only when Yami thought about how poorly he'd repaid Kaiba's trust that he felt small. Yami fell asleep to the thought that there was a clue there, if only he could decipher it.

The next morning Kaiba put on a silver-blue shirt whose long, deep pocket was half hidden by the sleeveless silk duster he wore over it. Kaiba had put on the outfit without comment, as if some tailor hadn't been roused out of bed with his special request.

The pocket was the right height to let Yami stand and look out. The material was thin enough that Yami could breathe through it, even when sitting down and hidden. He could feel the faint warmth of Kaiba's body through the cool silk of the shirt; he could hear the beat of Kaiba's heart. It was unexpectedly comforting. Kaiba's hand occasionally rested on the outside of the pocket, as though reassuring himself of Yami's well being. The brief almost-caress was surprisingly gentle in such a harsh man, and not intrusive.

Yami had spent his sleepless night plotting how to talk to Mokuba alone, without coming closer to a solution. He was surprised to find his problem solved effortlessly for him in the morning. Kaiba had barely set Yami on the dining room table across from Mokuba when his cell phone rang. He left the room, heading for his office. Yami could only hope the call would be a long one.

"I was wrong," he told Mokuba as soon as the door closed on Seto's heels. "Your brother doesn't trust easily. But he's always trusted me to be honest with him. And every moment I delay confessing how this all happened, I'm betraying that trust."

"I know. We both are," Mokuba admitted. "Part of me wishes we never had to confess, because it's not going to be pretty. But… well… yeah… I felt pretty guilty yesterday, like I was kind of letting him down. Besides, my brother promised not to ask you any questions. He didn't promise not to try and find out on his own. We'd better come clean before he does."

"Are you suggesting I'm proposing this course of action out of policy rather than principle?" Yami demanded.

Mokuba sighed. How could he have forgotten just how like his brother Yami could be?

"No, I'm just saying when policy and principle go together, it's best to take advantage of them. When do you think we should tell him? And where?" Mokuba looked around the room and assessed the number of breakable objects.

"Not 'us,' Mokuba. Me. The original error was mine. I'm the one who needs to correct it."

"I'm not letting you do it alone. My brother always tried to teach me to be responsible for my actions. So how am I going to look him in the eye if I let you take the rap for me now? Besides…" Mokuba paused then blurted out, "you're pretty small… and well… breakable right now, Yami."

It was amazing, Mokuba thought, how scary Yami could look, even when he was just nine inches tall.

"I trust your brother," Yami said, managing with an effort to keep his voice calm. "He won't throw me out the window, no matter how sorely he might be tempted to do just that."

Mokuba sighed again. He tried not to think that the last time Yami had pissed his brother off this bad, he'd built a theme park of death. He was pretty sure his brother wouldn't do anything like that again, but still…

"I just don't want anything to happen to you… anything worse, I mean. I should never have gotten you mixed up in our problems in the first place. We're just bad news," Mokuba said glumly.

"Don't say that! Your brother scoffs at the idea of unity as a force – but you two are the embodiment of it. I let you talk to Shadi alone, because you wanted to tackle it on your own. It's my turn now."

"But…"

"We both know that Kaiba will forgive you, and grudgingly extend that to me if you demand it. But I refuse to hide. I want him to see me as I am: mortal and flawed. Your brother once said that the King of Games was his friend. I need to know if the same is true for Yami."

He paused then, feeling for the second time this morning like another puzzle piece had been placed in his hand – except he had no idea where it fit. Was this what Kaiba had felt like when he had pieced the shards of his soul together after Death-T?

"But…" Mokuba began again.

Before he could complete his sentence, a servant entered the room and headed towards them.

"Hide," Mokuba hissed, throwing the cloth napkin over Yami's head. "You can leave everything until later," he told the woman as she started to clear the table. Yami had barely crawled out from under the napkin after she'd left, when Kaiba reentered the room and grabbed him.

"That took longer than I thought." Kaiba turned to his brother as he stuffed Yami into his shirt pocket. "Hurry up, Mokuba. Get your backpack. Time for school."

Yami couldn't resist peaking out over the pocket's edge and shooting Mokuba a triumphant look at finding a way to win their argument.

"Wait, Nisama…" Mokuba yelled as his brother headed off down the hallway.

"No time, Mokuba," Kaiba called back over his shoulder. "You're going to be late unless we hurry."

"I thought maybe I could come to the office with you today?" Mokuba asked, trying to keep pace with his brother's longer strides.

"There's nothing special going on. If there is I'll call you," Kaiba said as they reached the doorway.

Mokuba sighed. Before he could slow his brother down long enough to listen to his confession, they were on their way to his school. And there was no way he was going to blurt out what had happened when his brother was behind the wheel of a speeding car. He shrugged and decided his time would be better spent calculating just how quickly he could fake a call from Kaiba Corporation and ditch school. If he got Kaiba's secretary to stop screening his brother's calls, that would almost certainly delay Yami's confession until he could get there. And now that he thought about it, the office wouldn't be a bad place anyway. It was certainly where his brother felt most comfortable. That settled, Mokuba sat back to enjoy the ride. He loved it when his brother drove like a maniac.

Yami had to admire Mokuba's ingenuity. Kaiba had barely had a moment's peace since they'd arrived at his office. Judging from his reaction, none of the endless stream of calls had been particularly important. If Yami had any doubts (which he didn't) just who was responsible for the constant interruptions, they would have been erased by the guilty look on Kaiba's secretary's face when her boss asked her just why she had suddenly picked this morning to become incompetent. She had mumbled something both apologetic and incoherent and escaped.

But before Yami could say anything, Kaiba announced, "I kept my promise. I haven't asked you a thing. But I'd have to be blind not to know this is some more of that occult shit that seems to follow you around. I called Isis. According to her, there's one item that could do this: some kind of scale that could weigh people's souls or something. She thought it probably would have needed a Key to work. Keys… Scale… what's next, the Millennium Toothbrush?"

"What?" Yami asked. He hadn't seen what Shadi had done. All he remembered was the flash of light. It must have been the Scale, he realized. How could he have forgotten Shadi weighing their hearts when they had first met? He'd been so focused on the ancient memories he'd given up, he'd ignored the current ones he'd created with Yugi. For the first time he wondered if part of the solution to Shadi's riddle lay in the present, and not the past.

"You called Isis?" Yami asked, coming out of his thoughts with a start.

"Yeah. I asked her how her psycho brother was doing. Then I asked her what other hardware was out there and what it could do. The Scale seemed like the best bet. Who has it? Isis either didn't know or had taken a non-interference vow. All she'd say was her Necklace had gone and she could no longer see the future. I reminded her that she wasn't too good at it to begin with. That's when she hung up."

"Could my heart really be so small?" Yami murmured.

Kaiba groaned. "You're not taking this weighing your heart bullshit seriously are you?"

"Shouldn't I? Look at the result."

"Then someone had their finger on the Scale. Otherwise your body would be as big as your ego."

For once, it was Yami's turn to snort.

"I get why you didn't want to tell me what happened," Kaiba continued. "I even get why you stayed over instead of going home with your cheerleader crew. For all your talk of friendship you wanted to figure it out on your own, right?" Kaiba laughed. "You didn't want to look _small_ in front of them."

Yami stared at Kaiba. Part of the answer to Shadi's riddle lay in Kaiba's careless words. He was sure of it. Then with a start, he listened to what Kaiba was saying.

"I know what that feels like," Kaiba said seriously. "That time… with Pegasus… yeah, I felt trapped. But I keep wondering… could I have found my own way out? I pieced together my own heart. Could I have found a hidden door and escaped from wherever he'd sent me, if I'd been stronger?"

"It's not always about strength," Yami said.

"What else is there?" Kaiba asked, sounding for the first time, like he was willing to listen to the answer.

"Friendship, trust…" Yami said, feeling like a fraud, given the secret he was keeping within his small frame.

"All the usual suspects," Kaiba laughed.

"Kaiba," Yami said, refusing to let go of the mood. He realized something suddenly: he had fallen into an age-old trap; he'd needed to prove his strength, that he could handle all situations, that he was still the King of Games. But that had always been a shared title; he'd always relied on his friends. How could he keep forgetting that so easily? Maybe there was a key to match Shadi's. But if he was to earn his friends' trust and help, he had to first offer his honesty and his flaws, just as he had told Mokuba.

He drew a deep breath and said, "Shadi has two millennium items – the Scale and the Key."

"Shadi?" Kaiba asked, his eyes widening, then narrowing in suspicion.

"Yes," Yami confirmed.

"Shadi has the Key – or Shadi _is_ the key?" Kaiba asked, his voice dangerously reasonable.

"Both," Yami admitted.

Kaiba let out a low whistle, still suspiciously calm. "All this time," he said quietly. "I was so distracted by you being doll sized, it never occurred to me to wonder what you were doing in my bedroom in the first place."

Yami waited.

"You fucking bastard!" Kaiba yelled. Hands shaking with anger, he grabbed the coffee mug next to Yami, whirled and threw it against the wall. It shattered, leaving a trail of coffee running down the wall. He glared at Yami, then with an effort turned from him, grabbed his chair and heaved it against the bookcase by the wall. It toppled over with a satisfying crash. Yami waited a moment, but no one entered the office; the intercom was silent. Either Kaiba's office was sound-proofed or his staff was used to the sound of smashing furniture. Kaiba looked at Yami, opened his mouth, then shut it and turned back to his office. He went to work methodically, smashing everything breakable, sparing only his computer and the desk it rested on. Yami watched, feeling like he was in the eye of a storm, safe for a moment as he watched the destruction swirl around him.

The thought that Yami hadn't considered him worth his honesty had Kaiba angrier than he could ever remember being in his short, rage-filled life.

"I could break you in two like an action figure!" Kaiba yelled.

"Will you?" Yami asked.

"No!"

It was an admission that scared Kaiba, no matter how threateningly he screamed it. He looked around his office, saw a picture that had escaped the carnage, and carefully unhooked it from the wall. He walked to the upturned bookcase and slammed it down. Yami ducked as shards of glass went flying.

Kaiba exhaled, turned back to Yami and said, slightly more quietly, "You fucking bastard. How dare you?"

"You're right. I should have told you from the beginning."

"Good. Start from the beginning, now. What were you doing in my room?"

"The Millennium Scale weighs each person's heart, but with the Millennium Key, Shadi can enter the mind at will, and change it according to his needs."

Kaiba stared at Yami, the recent weeks of feeling unlike himself, of simply feeling wrong, flashing through his mind. "The devious son of a bitch," he muttered. "I should have known there's no such thing as a free lunch. It was a head game after all and I never noticed. What was your part in this?"

"I was trying to stop him," Yami said.

"You didn't come to me, you didn't tell me the truth. Didn't you think I'd want to know? I've been here like an idiot trying to respect your privacy, and all this time you've been hiding this? Did you think me the kind of weak fool…" Kaiba paused and leaned against his desk. It was the only undamaged object in the room. "The kind of weak fool who'd sleep in an enemy's presence and give him a clear shot at messing up his mind."

"No! I was afraid you'd think I thought that," Yami said with more earnestness than coherence. "And trust, even trust misplaced, is not wrong."

"Trust? That's a joke. You didn't trust me to deal with it, did you? Are you going to pretend what you did was any better? It was just as much a violation."

"I know."

Kaiba stared at Yami, angered that even now, he couldn't sweep out. He felt responsible, not for Yami's predicament – the other duelist had brought that on himself – but in some obscure way for Yami's well being, and he was unused to feeling this kind of unsettling concern for anyone but Mokuba. It struck him that sanctuary was an uncomfortable thing. Kaiba wanted to yell, but didn't know what to say. And in the sudden stillness in the room, he faced the one thing worse than Yami's intrusion.

"How did you find out about Shadi in the first place? Or about my acting weird?" Kaiba demanded.

Yami's refusal to answer was answer enough.

"There's only one way you could have known," Kaiba whispered. "Mokuba. He betrayed me."

Yami forced himself to meet Kaiba's eyes, steeled himself to witness the hurt he was sure he'd find. But Kaiba looked curiously blank, as if the wound was too deep for pain.

"No. He didn't betray you," Yami said.

"Don't lie."

"I'm not lying. Do you remember when you were trapped in that virtual world?"

"Which time?"

Yami smiled. "After Duelist's Kingdom. Your Board of Directors challenged you. Mokuba came to us for help. He'll do anything to keep you safe… even wound your ego. Get over it, Kaiba. He cares more about your life than your pride." Yami paused, then added more seriously, "I appreciate what you did for me, Kaiba… giving me the time to come to my own decisions. I'm sorry I didn't do the same for you."

Yami had told Kaiba they were equals many times. This was the first time he'd ever named Kaiba his superior in anything, even for a moment. Kaiba had never been magnanimous in victory. Each one had been too hard fought for that. But this was different.

"So, you're a pompous, presumptuous asshole. What else is new?" he said.

Yami smiled. "Do you know how many times we've sworn not to forgive each other?"

Kaiba was about to say he'd done no such thing. Self-righteous pronouncements were Yami's department, not his. But he _had_ tried to kill Yami, and he supposed that counted in the "not-forgiving" category.

"What's your point?" he asked warily.

"We keep swearing not to forgive each other. We keep breaking our word."

Was Yami talking about friendship or something else? Kaiba couldn't be sure. His ideas of friendship were hazy. He wished Yami was full sized so he could see the expression on his face more clearly. He wasn't sure how this fight, how Yami's unpardonable intrusion into his business had led to this strange feeling of closeness.

They were smiling hesitantly at each other when Mokuba burst into the room. In one practiced scan, he took in the destruction then breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Yami standing safely on the desktop, as if marooned on an island.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I got here as soon as I could fake an excuse." He turned to his brother. "I'm the one you should be blaming. I got Yami mixed up with this in the first place."

"Why?" Kaiba asked as if anything more than that one word was beyond him. It didn't matter that Yami had explained. He wanted to hear it from Mokuba.

"Because I knew you'd go after Shadi. And any time you go up against those freaking Millennium Items, shit happens."

"You thought I couldn't take care of myself?" Kaiba asked. He picked a pencil off his desk and snapped it in half. Mokuba flinched at the sound.

"No! It's just… if anyone got hurt… I didn't want it to be you. I didn't think about anything else. I'm sorry, Nisama."

Kaiba nodded. Forgiving Mokuba was a foregone conclusion.

Mokuba breathed a sigh of relief, looked around the room, and said a little too innocently, "As long as I'm here, and no one's dead, I might as well stay and help you with all the preliminary arrangements for our next tournament."

"Don't bother. I'm canceling it," Kaiba answered.

"Have you gone crazy?" Yami asked. "You can't do that!"

"I told you at Alcatraz – I will never let you fight at less than your best."

"What about you? What about your word?"

Kaiba shrugged. "Everyone will assume I have a complex and probably nefarious business reason. No one has very high expectations of my conduct."

"I do. I always have."

"I know – and that's why I'm going to live up to them. I'm not holding a tournament until you can be one of the duelists. It was going to be your first tournament. If you're not there, it has no meaning."

"And would watching me have been enough to satisfy you?"

Kaiba's lips quirked at that. "When I could be playing you? Probably not. But since when does whether it's enough or not matter?"

"Of course it does, Kaiba!" Yami said in the voice of someone goaded way beyond exasperation. "Look at what you're doing! You're setting up tournaments you refuse to play in and building amusement park attractions you won't ride. Have you found yourself or simply discovered a new method of losing your way? How is this different from what Shadi tried to do?"

"Because I'm the one doing it to myself!" Kaiba roared. He paused, as if he'd finally yelled loudly enough to hear his own words.

Yami ignored Kaiba's momentary hesitation. "Yes. It's your right to make whatever stupid, self-destructive decisions you want. That doesn't mean I have to keep silent while you're making them.

Kaiba snorted. "Big talk for someone who's doll-sized."

Yami couldn't believe they had managed to get into a new argument so soon after the old one had ended.

"That doesn't make what I'm saying wrong. I _did_ lose my way," Yami said. "Maybe that's part of the price I'm paying now. I gave up all chance at regaining my memories – and then I forgot to create new ones. That's one mistake I'm not going to make again."

"I got it. You want to duel me."

"That'll do to start."

Kaiba stared at Yami, openly confused. Mokuba didn't blame him. This conversation was making less and less sense to him, too.

"I guess I better get to Legal and see how far the contracts have gotten," Mokuba said, hoping to get out of the room before his brother remembered to send him back to school for the rest of the day.

"What about the office?" Yami asked.

Mokuba shrugged. "I'll have someone bring in a chair. It's no big deal. Maintenance will clean up, and General Services will send someone to redecorate after you guys leave."

Yami looked around the room and muttered, "I wonder how much they get paid."

"A lot," Mokuba assured him. "And everyone who works at Kaiba Corporation, in any capacity, has to sign a confidentiality agreement."

The secretary entered the room as Mokuba was leaving. She was carrying a chair. Yami stood as still as if he was truly an action figure, although given the way she was studiously avoiding looking at anything in the room – especially her boss – Yami could have jumped up and down waving his arms without attracting her notice.

"You should remember which Kaiba brother you work for," Kaiba said as she wheeled the chair up to the desk.

Yami wondered if he'd imagined hearing a whispered, "So should you," as she left the room.

"Start from the beginning," Kaiba said when they were alone. He listened as Yami gave all the details he could remember of his encounter with Shadi. "So you blundered into this in some misguided attempt to save me?" he asked as Yami finished.

"No. Not totally. I did it for myself as well."

"What the fuck were you trying to prove?"

"That being human didn't diminish me."

"Literally, in your case," Kaiba laughed.

His laugh broke off abruptly when Yami added, "That I could protect the people I care for. I wanted to be the invincible King of Games for you."

"This wasn't your battle," Kaiba said.

"Our battles are always the same."

"Is that why you don't want me to stop dueling?"

"I never want to see you give up a piece of yourself again. But concern and desire run together. I don't want to walk into that tournament knowing you won't be facing me. I want to stand on my own two feet, look into your eyes, deck in hand, and feel your passion, your determination… and have it all aimed at me. Shadi was right about one thing. I'm done waiting on time. As soon as I win this game, I'm coming after the things I want."

It was strange, Kaiba thought… he'd assumed when this was over – and he had no doubt they'd win – that Yami would pack up and head out; that they'd go back to calling each other friends, but never seeing each other except at tournaments. And if he stopped dueling, they'd lose even that…

"And it just wouldn't be a tournament unless I got to duel you," Kaiba mumbled, finishing his thought out loud. He'd said the same thing before, had said it challengingly, with anger and determination biting each word off sharply. This sounded different and Kaiba knew it. A glance at Yami's smug face confirmed that he knew it as well.

Kaiba scowled. It was time, he thought, to return to the problem at hand.

"Shadi said he was going to teach you about true diminishment. Well, what have you learned?"

Yami laughed. Kaiba's approach was refreshingly direct. Then he grew more serious as he tried to answer Kaiba's question.

"That this form does not determine who I am. But maybe it matches my failings. I was being small in courage and honesty. That is the true diminishment and I did it to myself."

"Here I was thinking you'd go for a cliché that the heart isn't measured by its size," Kaiba noted.

Yami shook his head, puzzled for a moment, as if he'd just been given a clue he was too dull to read.

"Well, what I learned," Kaiba continued, "Is never to trust a devious bastard like Shadi. No, that's not quite accurate. I didn't trust him. I just underestimated him… and besides… it was convenient."

There was nothing pint-sized about Yami's smile. "I didn't want your first unthinking act to turn out so badly. That's a side of you I'd like to encourage."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Yami's grinned widened. "That this situation is starting to chafe."

Over the next couple of days, Kaiba realized he was spending far too much time wondering just what Yami had meant by that remark. It was such an odd thing to say, that Kaiba knew it had to carry a meaning beyond the obvious one; a second puzzle beyond the one they were wrestling with together.

The rest of the week brought them no closer to the solution of either riddle, although it did establish that anything – no matter how bizarre and onerous – can become routine if it goes on long enough.

Yami went to work with Kaiba in the morning. Kaiba had done two things – both equally unprecedented. He'd reversed a decision – now going forward with the tournament – and he'd delegated most of the arrangements to Mokuba, who couldn't help feeling guiltily happy at the way things had worked out, in this regard at least. He'd been excused from school until the tournament details had been taken care off.

Once his brother had decided to help Yami regain his size, Mokuba wasn't surprised at the way he threw himself into trying to figure it out – as if the proper application of research and intelligence would yield the answer. He was more startled that Yami had apparently talked his brother into changing his mind about the tournament. But then, a lot of their conversations seemed increasingly odd to him as the week progressed. They reminded him of Shadi and Yami's argument. Mokuba wished he'd paid more attention that night. Had Yami and Shadi really been yelling about who liked his brother more? Mokuba knew he'd promised his brother not to hold anything back, ever again. But he told himself that keeping quiet on the details of a conversation he hadn't really listened to or understood didn't count as keeping secrets.

For once, – at least as far as the tournament was concerned – Mokuba was imagining a mystery where none existed. Yami had simply managed to say the one thing that could get Kaiba to go back on a decision he'd made.

"Canceling the tournament is like giving up. It's like saying we can't beat Shadi at his own game. And I won't consider any possibility other than winning. I can't," Yami had said.

Kaiba nodded. This meant they had to beat Shadi before the first tournament guest arrived. But then, he'd never minded an impossible deadline before.

"When there's no turning back and nothing to turn back to anyway, it's best not to look behind," he agreed.

"Is that why you ignore your past so determinedly?" Yami asked.

Kaiba shrugged. "There's nothing for me there. You were the one chasing after your memories as if they were the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, as if a rainbow isn't merely refracted light, a naturally occurring hologram."

"I was given a choice of having a past or a future. Like you, I decided to go forward, no matter the cost, giving up all hope of knowing what lay behind. I turned my back on my ancient unknown comrades, refused to rejoin them in their after-life. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. And yet, if I've learned anything this week, it's not to take time for granted."

Yami was surprised at the amount of information on scales and heart-weighing that Kaiba had managed to amass. As he stared at a picture of Anubis weighing the hearts of the dead, he thought how strange it was to be studying something that had once must have been as well known to him as his own forgotten name.

After hours of trying to remember millennia of trivia, with arguments with Kaiba as punctuation, it was a break when Yugi and the gang came over each day after school. And that too, had become routine. Jounouchi had even stopped trying to come up with plans to sneak Yami out and back home where he belonged. And for his part, Kaiba learned to tolerate Yami's friends – or more accurately, to ignore their presence – although he preferred it when they left. He'd grown used to having Yami in his pocket when they were alone.

But by the end of the week, Yami felt like he'd reached the point in a duel where defeat stares down at you, and you wonder if this time it will grab you for real. His friends were supporting him. Kaiba and he had spent endless hours trying to reconstruct or analyze every second of Yami's encounter with Shadi and tie it into some data on Ancient Egyptian mythology. And yet, nothing had worked. Perhaps the fault lay with him, Yami thought one afternoon as he sat on Kaiba's desk. Yugi and his friends were due at Kaiba Corporation any minute. Mokuba had finally been ordered back to school, but he'd be joining them soon as well.

"Maybe this is what I deserve," he said. "Perhaps I am well punished for my arrogance, and Shadi was right to force me to see how small and petty I really am."

"You're not going to start pitying yourself are you?" Kaiba said irritably. "Should I get you a violin? Stop it. Whining doesn't suit you."

Yami stared at Kaiba. "I expected you to say everything that's happened served me right."

Kaiba shrugged. "I don't want anyone else breaking you down to size. I want the pleasure all for myself."

Yami did the only thing he could. He bit Kaiba's hand.

They say that a spell is supposed to be broken with a kiss – but perhaps for these two, a bite worked just as well. Because as Kaiba carried his sore thumb to his mouth, all the unrelated conversations they'd had came together in Yami's head… the feeling he'd gotten a piece of the puzzle whenever he thought about his heart, his loyalties or his friends. He remembered Kaiba saying that Shadi must have had his finger on the Scale because otherwise his body would have been as over-sized as his ego.

Yami finally felt the pieces of the puzzle shift into place. He looked down at his own insignificant form. It represented his pettiness, his pride, his fear of having his friends see him as anything but the invincible King of Games. In his need to be a pharaoh – even to them – he had tied himself to his own smallness of heart.

But there was more to him than that; there were all the things he had carried with him into this new existence, all the things he had learned here. Friendship, hope, trust, and courage – any true accounting would include these things as well. And they would be enough. Shadi had tested Yami's heart in their first duel back when he'd still been a spirit in a puzzle. Yami had passed then. The nature of the challenge had not changed.

By the time Kaiba had lowered his thumb and turned to glare at his miniature rival, Yami knew what he had to do to end this game. Shadi had promised him a rematch. He was ready.

Yami grabbed one of the papers Kaiba had printed out. He'd managed to unearth the story of a man so desperate to prove his worth, he demanded Anubis account for his soul while alive. He stared at Anubis' assistant, the one standing in the shadows. Fluidly, Yami read the words of the ancient challenge.

Kaiba grabbed the paper back and stared at it. "You think he's just going to pop in at your request?" he asked.

Yami smirked as Shadi appeared. "Although the ties binding a subject to his pharaoh dissolved with my rejection of my memories, it seems that the bonds that tie the two players in a penalty game can survive anything," Yami said.

"You rejected your memories. How did you know the words that would summon me here?" Shadi said.

Yami smiled. "It's appropriate that we used something as modern as the Internet to unearth something as ancient as the ritual calling you here. Perhaps it's an omen. My life has been on hold long enough. It's time to finish this duel, once and for all."

"How do you propose to do that?" Shadi asked.

"This game is deceptively simple," Yami said. "If I had not made the bargain I did… if I had not traded my memories for a future, I would have known the answer at once. You combined the Key, which can change our minds, with the Scale, which weighs our hearts. I call for a true accounting. You can't, as the keeper of these items, deny me, not while remaining true to them. This is a penalty game. It's time to name the stakes. If you win, I offer my chance at this life you so resent me for choosing. This shape becomes permanent."

"You seem so sure I'll accept."

"You can't refuse. You can't leave a penalty game half played. It's time to see how large I really am."

"We're ready whenever you decide to shut up and play," Kaiba announced.

"You consider yourselves a team?" Shadi asked.

Kaiba stared at him, startled. As usual when it came to anything resembling an emotion, he'd been unable to see the obvious conclusion to his actions. But as Mokuba had noted, although his brother was clueless when it came to friendship, he knew everything there was to know about standing his ground.

"What did you think? That I'm standing here as part of the scenery? Of course I'm in. You fucked both of us over, but good." Kaiba ignored Yami's sudden snort of laughter at his words. "We both have scores to settle with you. We might as well do them together."

"And what are you offering as the ante to join this game?" Shadi asked.

Kaiba drew a deep breath. "What you want. Otherwise you will never get close enough to me to twist my mind again."

"Are you saying you won't fight me?" Shadi asked skeptically.

"No. I'm simply saying I will allow you to try your hardest. If I fight you off, or die in the attempt, so be it. You'll accept, penalty game or not. It's your only chance to get what you want. And when we win, you're going to stay the fuck out of my life and my head."

"No!" Yami cried, "You can't do this!"

"Do you dare to think I would offer less than you?" Kaiba demanded.

"What about Mokuba?" Yami asked.

"I learned from Duelists' Kingdom. Mokuba is protected in the event of my death – or even a descent into niceness."

Shadi shook his head. The movement caught Yami's attention. It struck Yami that he didn't like most of Kaiba's decisions any more than Shadi did. The difference was, he knew he had to accept them.

"You're right about the tournament," Yami said suddenly to the taller duelist. Kaiba looked at him, startled. "I still wish you'd enter. That hasn't changed. I think you're avoiding dueling for all the wrong reasons, that you're short-changing yourself. But it's your life and your choices and if I'm to live up to what you keep calling my interminable friendship speeches, I have to let you make them at your own pace and in your own way.

Kaiba grinned. "You just can't do anything without making a speech, can you? Is that how this game is played? You'll let me go to hell in my own way and in return, I have to listen to you give a soliloquy every time you make a decision? At least I'm finally figuring out the rules, stupid as they are." Kaiba tapped the KC logo on his duster. "Don't let anyone up," he said to the security staff in the lobby. He turned to Shadi, and all the humor left his face. "Either way, it's time to finish this."

* * *

 **  
_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing and for helping me (hopefully) make the ending of the chapter understandable to someone besides myself._   
**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It was fun imagining Kaiba's poor, long-suffering, unnamed secretary. One of the things I dislike most about the dub is that it implies that Kaiba randomly fires people without cause. While I have absolutely no doubt he would be difficult to work for, unable to delegate anything more than he absolutely had to, and given to explosions, I also don't think he could be totally irrational and keep a large corporation running. In the subtitled anime he has the loyalty of his aides, and clearly the respect of his design/production team. Of course, we never see anyone around him except for Isono and Fubeta (I love those guys), but I wanted to give Kaiba a secretary. I figured if she'd worked with him for any length of time, she'd have to be pretty unflappable, used to the sound of smashing furniture, as sense of humor and an appreciation of the absurd would be a requirement – and she'd have to be perceptive enough to realize that while the older Kaiba has the bark, listening to the younger one is never a bad idea.

I'm sorry for the delay in posting, hopefully the story's back on track. The last chapter should wrap it up.

 _As always, comments would be adored..._


	5. Full House

**CHAPTER 5: FULL HOUSE**

A platform had appeared with Shadi's arrival; its sides were intricately carved with hieroglyphs. It looked singularly out of place in Kaiba's modern, newly-redecorated office. Four large stone Ushebti statues were on it, forming a square. Four pairs of kohl-outlined eyes stared out at them, their faces expressionless beneath the ceremonial headdresses. Four sets of identical arms were folded across four chests. Each right hand clasped an Ankh. They stood in their sarcophagi, rows of hieroglyphics running in horizontal stripes from shoulders to feet. Their heads came up to Yami's waist – or where Yami's waist would have been if he'd never gone to the mansion and picked a fight with Shadi. A thin cord had been strung from each statue. They met in the center to form the outline of a pyramid above them. At its apex, high above Yami (and even Kaiba), hung the Millennium Key.

"These look familiar. The last time we played this game, you lost," Yami said.

"I don't think history will repeat itself. Nor will I," Shadi answered. "The last time, I was testing the heart of a pharaoh. The statues represented your heart; they were bound to serve the gods."

Kaiba put Yami on the platform. He studied the four figures. They were triple his height. Shadi's meaning was clear. The last time they had felt familiar, animate. They'd been a part of him. Now their blank faces, as they stood there waiting for a soul to trap, made Yami shudder.

"Yes. They are waiting to be occupied. You were right: two Millennium Items are in play in this game, the Scale and the Key." Shadi set the Scale at the juncture of the four Ushebti figures, so that it was resting on their joined shoulders. "If you can use the Scale to reach the Key, you win. If either you or even one of the Ushebti figures which will form your foundation crumble, the Key will fall and be lost to you forever."

"It seems you've learned nothing since we met, yet expect the conclusion of this game to be different," Yami said.

"There is every difference! You once told me that the Puzzle represented the power of unity. Now you no longer have the Puzzle. The last time you fought to protect your people, as a pharaoh must. How will you fare when _you_ are the one depending on _them?_ You renounced divinity. Is humanity – not just yours but your friends' – strong enough to bear up under the burden?" Shadi smiled. "It looks like we're about to find out. Your uninvited guests are arriving."

Kaiba and Yami looked at the security monitor. Yugi, Jounouchi, Honda and Anzu were fighting with the guards… who obviously recognized them and were trying to hold the little band off without hurting them.

"Let them come up," Yami told Kaiba.

Kaiba was tempted to throw the lot out, but he looked at the diminutive figure beside him and nodded, wondering why he was taking orders from a doll. But it was Yami's game; he deserved to choose his hand. Kaiba groaned as he saw Mokuba run into the building. He tapped the walkie-talkie in his KC pin on his duster.

"Tell them if they wait ten minutes for you to disarm the security system they can come up," he told his security team.

Even with the sound off, it was easy to interpret Mokuba's reaction. "Mokuba seems to think you're lying," Yami said.

"I am. And I don't have much time."

"It all comes down to Mokuba for you, doesn't it?" Shadi asked.

Kaiba didn't bother answering.

"I would have left your love for your brother untouched," Shadi said.

"Then the rest falls apart. He seems to want me the way that I am."

Kaiba had one eye on the security monitor as he said, "There's only four statues. There's no reason for Mokuba to be a part of this."

"I would not involve a child in these games," Shadi agreed.

"Why the hell not? You seem to have no problem screwing around with everyone else's lives," Kaiba said.

"I will swear on any oath you require. If they were not binding, I would not be here. I would leave Yami with the size that suits him so well. Why does your cold, hard logic always break down when it comes to your brother?"

Kaiba ignored his question, saying, "You need four people to fill these statues. That much is clear. I said I was in. I stand by my word. Do it quickly." He slapped his hand on the stone figure closest to him. It landed with a hollow thud. Kaiba barely repressed a shiver at the sound.

Yami groaned, then pressed his lips tightly together. Kaiba looked at him and laughed.

"Good," Kaiba said. "I don't have the time to argue this one out. Everything – even when it seems like it's for free – comes with a bill attached. This is the price I'm willing to pay to give you a shot at winning on your own terms. I know all about tainted victories. This one has to be clean. Besides, I've been turned into a statue before. I can deal."

"Kaiba," Yami said, then stopped, lost for words.

"You told me at Alcatraz that I had to find a different way," Kaiba said. "Trust is one I haven't tried – until now." Kaiba turned to Shadi as the gang in the lobby raced for the elevators. "Mokuba's seen me turned to stone once already. Do it now or the deal's off."

"Done," Shadi said.

There was the flash Yami had started to associate with Shadi's magic. He stared at the platform. The four figures were no longer identical. The lines of hieroglyphics that ran across the front of the sarcophagus of the closest figure had turned to cords, binding Kaiba even as he was caught and frozen in the act of straining against them. His eyes were outlined in kohl, but they were almost covered by the shock of hair falling in front of them. However, the blaze of anger in them was as vivid as if Kaiba was still flesh and blood; only in the granite-hard determination underlying his rage did he seem to be truly stone.

Shadi looked at the figure sadly. "That was a singularly rash and ill-judged decision."

"It was his to make," Yami replied.

"And yet you have chosen to make him part of your foundation. Can't you feel him straining against the confines of his prison? How long will it be until he cracks?"

"That does not change my answer."

"You are as imprisoned by his choice as he," Shadi observed.

"But we were both free to make our own decisions and play them out as we will."

The elevator bell interrupted them. On the monitor, Yami saw Yugi, Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu and Mokuba scramble out of its doors in a mad jumble of arms and legs. They raced into the office then stopped short, crashing into one another, staring with shock at the stone statues in front of them. Four mouths fell open at the sight of Kaiba's bound figure.

"I'll kill you!" Mokuba yelled, lunging at Shadi, only to be held back by Jounouchi and Honda.

"This just keeps getting freakier and freakier," Jounouchi moaned.

"It's the start of your end game, isn't it?" Yugi asked Yami.

Yami nodded as Shadi explained the challenge.

Yugi looked from Yami to Kaiba. "A foundation needs four pillars, doesn't it?" Yugi asked. He stepped forward. "You've been my support ever since we met."

"Mine too," Jounouchi agreed. "Whatever you need – I'm here."

Honda and Anzu nodded.

Anzu looked from the figures to Shadi. "I don't really remember what you did to me last time… I don't think I want to."

Shadi lowered his head at that. "Please believe that it was a necessity."

"I don't," Anzu said decisively. "Playing with people's heads just because you can is _never_ a necessity."

"I had to test the pharaoh!"

"Why? He would have been just as worthy if you had trusted him," she said.

"Worthy? When he refused to rejoin his comrades in the after-life?"

"Hey, wait a minute!" Jounouchi interrupted. "Yami only got the chance to stay here with us because he saved all your ancient Egyptian butts, remember? Are you saying you shrunk him because of some stupid grudge?"

"He meddled in things that were no longer his concern. The High Priest was not his business," Shadi said.

"The High Priest… you mean… oh shit, I _knew_ this was all Kaiba's fault!" Jounouchi shouted triumphantly.

"Jounouchi!" Yami and Yugi shouted together as if they still shared a throat and voice box. Honda tightened his grip on Mokuba since the younger Kaiba looked like he couldn't decide who to tackle first – Shadi or Jounouchi.

"Shut up," Anzu said. "No matter how many times Kaiba's pissed me off until I couldn't see straight, no one deserves this." She looked at the stone figure, at the unseeing eyes that glared so defiantly, and gulped. "Kaiba volunteered didn't he?"

Yami nodded, pride evident in the gesture. Anzu turned back to Shadi.

"Then I think you've lost, whatever happens next, because unity really is stronger than anything. Even Kaiba seems to have figured that out."

Yugi nodded, then turned to Shadi. "You started this game. We're here to end it… and I'm still waiting."

"As you wish," Shadi answered.

They closed their eyes against the sudden glare, then stared at the second Ushebti figure. Yugi had copied the position of the Ushebti figure, standing at attention with his arms folded across his chest, as though determined to honor the spirit of the game. But one stalk of hair had escaped the ceremonial headdress to spring forward over his face. And his eyes were as wide as they'd ever been, his face as cheerful, as though being turned to stone was a new adventure. The hand holding the Ankh had its thumb stuck triumphantly up, already celebrating victory. Yami couldn't help smiling and saluting his partner.

"Hey! If you think I'm letting Yugi go anywhere without me, you've got another think coming! Just put me as far as possible from Mr. Moneybags and we'll be fine," Jounouchi shouted.

Shadi didn't bother answering, entombing Jounouchi with another flash of light. Yami had smiled before. Now he laughed out loud. Jounouchi was winking at him. Like Yugi, Jounouchi had a finger raised in a salute. Unlike Yugi, it was the middle one.

"Wait a minute!" Mokuba shouted. "There's only one spot left! If anyone's joining in – it's me."

Automatically, Yami, Honda and Anzu turned to look at Kaiba's statue, unsure if it was a trick of the light, or if faint cracks had started to appear along its side.

Honda bit his lip, thinking hard. Mokuba'd saved him at Death-T. He hadn't had to do it, you'd think he'd had enough on his mind, but he'd saved him anyway. It wasn't that Honda thought he owed Mokuba… his mind didn't work that way. But… he was older than Mokuba; he understood he didn't need to be _in_ the game to be one of its supports.

"It's okay, kid. I'll stay with you. They need us here to make sure everything stays on the up and up."

"I guess it's up to me, then," Anzu said. "But this time, it's _my_ choice."

The first time they'd met, Shadi had changed Anzu into a beautiful, empty doll. This time, there was intelligence and determination behind her stone eyes.

All four figures were occupied. Shadi's gaze lingered on the slightly battered statue in front of him.

"One of your pieces seems damaged… likely to shatter under stress," Shadi observed.

Mokuba couldn't help but look at Yami. He exhaled as Yami said, "There's a difference between damaged and broken, between damaged and weak." He looked at the four silent figures in front of him. "Kaiba was right; you had a finger on the scale. You dishonored the item you swore to guard. I have chosen my four foundations: hope, love of life, friendship and the determination to change. If these things can't help me grow, then this is the size I deserve to remain. This game ends with a true accounting of our hearts."

Yami looked at Honda, still standing near him, ready to be of help even if he had no idea what to do next.

"The Scale is my starting point. I could use a hand," he said. Honda placed Yami at the intersection of the four figures.

"Let my height match my heart, be one with the strength of the comrades below me," Yami said as he stepped onto the Scale.

As soon as one tiny foot touched the closest golden bowl of the Scale, Yami felt the room fall away. This wasn't his soul room, he thought, remembering the maze where he'd first encountered Shadi. This place was softer, more nebulous, as if nothing here could hold solid shape, much less an unalterable size.

Then Yami was falling, spiraling though a dark vortex. He wondered if he was disappearing, if he had already failed. Then he felt his spirit buoyed by Yugi's simple faith, by his optimism. It was a feeling so simple, so pure it seemed to defy explanation or definition. Even in this strange place, Yugi was his starting point. He could no longer feel the scales or anything else beneath his feet – had lost all awareness of his body at all for that matter – but Yugi, as always, grounded him.

Yami was in darkness, deafened by the silence. He couldn't feel. But there were senses beyond these. Jounouchi was at his right. Yami caught a flicker of the thought, "Man, is this totally insane or what?" and smiled. In spite of the stakes, this was a game to Jounouchi. Yami thought he could learn a lot from his care-free friend. Jounouchi could have been jealous of him so easily, or have hated him as an interloper in Yugi's life. Instead, they'd become friends.

Then Yami was aware of Anzu, patiently waiting. He was humbled. It was all there in front of him: her infatuation, her confused feelings for Yugi. She'd left herself nowhere to hide. For an instant he wished he could return her feelings; he wanted her to be happy that badly, in that moment he loved her that much. As if he was one of the Ushebti figures, he felt himself crumbling under the weight of all he could not do. Somewhere beyond the Shadow Realm, in the world outside, Shadi's eyes gleamed at the sight. Yami looked down. Beyond expectation, he could see. He was falling apart, but Anzu's Ushebti figure was as rock solid as ever. She was trusting to their friendship to see them through anything.

He came almost full circle to the damaged statue beneath his feet. Kaiba was still straining reflexively against the confines of his stone casing. Like Duelists' Kingdom, like Noa's World, like DOMA, once again he was bound. But this time he trusted Yami to set him free.

He trusted Yami.

That feeling was so new, so exciting, it made even the confines of his prison feel expansive.

Yami could tell: Kaiba was still testing the bindings, but there was no panic, no fear. Kaiba was almost drunk on trust, as if it was a heady, intoxicating thing. It was damnably enticing, Yami thought. An answering thread of desire ran through Kaiba, fastened as securely as his stone binding. Yami was tempted to pry more deeply into Kaiba's heart. But Kaiba was trusting him in this as well: not to peer too closely. It was easy for Yami to be patient… for even without Isis' Millennium Necklace, he'd been granted a glimpse of the future.

Yami looked at Yugi's figure again. He had as solid a foundation as any man could wish for. Yugi had given him that. Now it was time to draw on their strengths and step into his future. Yami felt himself shooting up, until the top of the golden stalk of hair on his head brushed the ceiling that hadn't existed until that moment, until he wondered if the figures of his friends would crack under his weight. But he knew they would hold, even if he did indeed crash through the roof.

Instead of being impossibly high, the key was now far below Yami's hand. He waited, thinking that as pleasurable as it would be to be the tallest of their group, he didn't want to risk going through life as a giant.

Shadi began his counter-attack. All of Yami's pettiness and vanity came flooding back. But this time, Yami was ready. The trick, he thought, wasn't to look past his faults or even to rise above them – but to let them in, to let them cut him down to size. Because he knew he couldn't banish them – and if there was anything he'd learned from Kaiba, it was the danger of trying. And even if he'd been foolish enough, he thought as he cringed with each memory of his frailty, to promise never to be as arrogant again, never to need to be the invincible King of Games... well like his repeated promises to never forgive Kaiba, these would be broken as well.

"I was wrong," he thought, hoping Kaiba could hear him. "Join your tournament or not, and I'll try to accept it... try to have faith that if not this time, maybe the next tournament will be the right one."

Then he found himself returning to his usual size, slightly taller, slightly thinner than his partner, than the youth who had once been his "other self." He had held out his hand, and as he slid back into his original height, he felt the Key fit into his palm. He looked around. He was back in Kaiba's office, standing atop a golden scale balanced on four stone figures.

Yami climbed down and picked up the Scale. He held both Millennium Items out to Shadi.

"Could you face the challenge I beat?" he asked Shadi. "Who would you call on to be your Ushebti figures and add their strength to yours? Even the gods were not made to stand alone."

"Everyone I would have chosen is dead. I see that now," Shadi said, looking sadly at the damaged figure at Yami's feet.

Yami picked up Kaiba's statue and held it in his arms. "Then admit this game is at an end. Release them all."

There was a final flash of light. Then Anzu, Jounouchi and Yugi were standing in place next to each other, leaning against each other to keep from falling over. Yami dropped to his knees under the sudden impact of Kaiba's weight as the taller duelist improbably ended up in his arms. Kaiba straightened himself like a cat leaping from a lap, suddenly conscious of his ruffled dignity.

He looked Yami up and down, slowly, and smirked. "Seems like a lot of effort for not much change."

"Nisama!" Mokuba yelled, as he crashed into his brother. Kaiba wasn't known for public displays of affection. But coming back to life after having been turned to stone was always an occasion that qualified.

"Welcome back," Yugi said, hugging Yami.

"Yeah! I knew you'd win!" Jounouchi yelled, bounding over to join them.

Anzu followed more slowly.

" _We_ won," Yami corrected. He turned to Anzu, "When I would have faltered, your faith in our friendship steadied me. Thank you."

If Anzu's smile was slightly sad as she agreed, "Friends," Yami was wise enough to pretend not to notice.

Mokuba's flying hug had carried Kaiba towards his office windows. Shadi walked over to join them. Kaiba had disentangled himself from Mokuba's embrace, but his hand was absent-mindedly ruffling Mokuba's hair as they stood side by side.

"I wanted you to be happy," Shadi said to Kaiba.

"No," Kaiba answered. "I don't know who you wanted to be happy – but it wasn't me."

"I'm sorry I never got to know the man my old friend became," Shadi said.

Kaiba shrugged. And seeing that dismissive gesture, Yami felt a moment's sympathy for Shadi. With the end of the match, as far as Kaiba was concerned, Shadi had merely joined the ranks of his defeated opponents.

"This is just plain wrong," Jounouchi said. "You were on our side in the last Millennium Battle. We wouldn't have won without you, and Yami would never have gotten the chance to stay here with us. Why'd you do this?"

"To guard the items through eternity… forever vigilant… that's a lot to ask of a person," Yami said.

"You can't be serious! You're feeling sorry for him? He turned you all into stone! Even you guys can't be this sappy!" Mokuba yelled.

"We know what he did. But he was our ally once," Yami said, walking across the room to join the group by the window. "For my part, I bear you no grudge."

"Maybe in another 3,000 years I will learn to appreciate your magnanimity," Shadi said.

"I doubt it. I'm willing to bet it'd take more than 3,000 years to forget what an annoying, self-righteous bastard he can be," Kaiba observed.

"Perhaps your decision was wise and you no longer need to be blessed by the gods," Shadi said to Yami.

"What's in the hearts of men can surpass even God," Yami answered.

"You're quoting me, _again?_ I could get used to this…" Kaiba commented.

"Not unless you start saying something worth repeating more often," Yami replied.

Possibly Shadi had had enough of their conversation, because he picked that moment to disappear.

Yami looked at Kaiba and said, "I wonder about your notion of convenience."

"It was convenient having you on my desk, too," Kaiba answered.

Yami's lips twitched. Kaiba looked at him suspiciously. As tall as he was, he was tired of looks and remarks that seemed designed to sail over his head. Several times over the past week, he'd wished Yami was full sized again, if only so that he could see his face more clearly. But Yami looked the same as always. He stared back at Kaiba as intensely as if they were in the middle of a tournament. His eyes were the color of blood; they held a hint of a challenge. There had to be something more. Unconsciously, Kaiba took a step closer. The nearness helped.

As Kaiba would have been the first to proclaim, even when he had no idea what to do next, he never forgot himself enough to actually _look_ confused. But Yami must have seen something in his face – a hint of an almost-question, perhaps – and his own expression sharpened in response… becoming warmer and more feral at the same time.

At last, Kaiba thought, something new… a change that made the whole rigmarole it took to get Yami's face back to a decent size to read, worthwhile. Of course, he still needed to decipher it. And that made this new game, whatever it was, exciting.

"I _do_ feel more alive around you," Kaiba said.

"And I feel tall."

Mokuba looked at them, reminded of the end of their duels, of how they'd ignore everything around them, until one of Yugi's friends reclaimed Yami's attention. They were interrupted just as abruptly when Jounouchi's stomach gave a rumble loud enough to wake the dead, much less be heard across the room. Mokuba sighed with relief. Everything was back to normal.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm hungry. Getting turned to stone really works up an appetite," Jounouchi said.

"We just opened a new restaurant on the ground floor," Mokuba said.

"What are we doing hanging out here then?" Honda asked.

"This is your treat, right, kid? After all, we did help save your big brother's ass," Jounouchi said as the gang started to leave.

Mokuba turned to plead with his brother to join them and realized, with a shock, that while things might have returned to normal, it was a _new_ normal. Yami hadn't recollected himself; he wasn't rushing over to Yugi and his friends. Instead he and Kaiba had lapsed back into their staring contest. Mokuba stood there for a moment, undecided. It seemed a shame to interrupt them; they'd never had a chance to finish this particular game before. Besides, Shadi was gone and Yami was back to his regular height; it's not like his Nisama was in any danger. That settled, Mokuba shrugged and headed out to join the others.

The bang of the closing door startled Kaiba and Yami into ending their game. Automatically Kaiba went to sit at his desk, ready to go back to work. He looked up in surprise when Yami made no move to leave the room.

"You're still here? I figured you'd head out now that you're not living in my pocket," Kaiba said.

"Do you want me to go?" Yami asked.

Kaiba shrugged. "It's your normal routine after saving the world."

"I didn't save the world. Just my own ass. And yours, of course," Yami said, smiling with false sweetness as he came towards the desk. "Anyway, things change – isn't that your mantra? We can join them later."

"We?"

"Mokuba's with them. You're going to have to pick him up eventually."

"Don't avoid my question," Kaiba said.

"You didn't ask one," Yami pointed out.

"Fine. Why did you stay?" Kaiba snapped.

Yami moved closer, until his very nearness was a challenge – or an answer.

"Because I wanted to," Yami said, his expression as intent as if they were dueling.

"What new game is this?" Kaiba demanded. "For that matter, what the hell did you mean by saying you wanted more than a duel? What the fuck more is there?"

Yami didn't answer with words, at least not at first. He leaned over Kaiba and pressed his lips to the other man's, deepening his kiss as he felt Kaiba's mouth open in response, moving closer until he was straddling Kaiba as he sat in his desk chair. His hands slid behind Kaiba's back; Kaiba's were already knotted in his hair.

It's hard to objectively measure a kiss. Kaiba and Yami were clearly satisfied with this one. But all kisses, even first ones, have to end eventually. Yami raised his head slightly and smiled from his vantage point on Kaiba's lap.

"You didn't listen carefully," Yami said. "I don't just want a duel; I want a match." Kaiba's eyes widened as they always did when he dueled Yami, as they always did when his rival threw out a wild card, unpredictable and unforeseen. Yami smirked at the sight. "There. My cards are on the table. It's your move. Unless you're going to end your turn without playing your hand," he said.

Kaiba felt the familiar adrenaline jolt he'd come to associate with Yami's presence. Now it mixed with this unfamiliar nearness, with the unexpected ache to close even the hair's-breadth of distance between them. Shadi had tried to violate Kaiba's mind. But Shadi had also felt safe. His behavior had matched Kaiba's expectations of how the world worked and he'd been secure in his own indifference. Yami, who would never move beyond whatever boundaries Kaiba imposed – even as he challenged them – was dangerous.

Then again… Kaiba had always been attracted to danger.

"If it's my move," Kaiba said, as he reached to pull Yami closer, as if this had all been his idea from the start, "I'd better make one, quickly."

* * *

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**Thanks to Bnomiko who helped a lot on this chapter. She really helped me to keep the story on track and to avoid running out of steam just as the finish line came into sight.**   
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**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I got the idea for this story from an adorable doujinshi picture I saw on the Pharaoh's Palace (the link to the Prideshipping group is on my biopage). I showed High Priest Seto holding a tiny chibi-fied Yami in the palm of his had. The picture was so absurd it was irresistible. For some reason, this image collided in my head with the thought that if Shadi and Kaiba were lovers, Shadi might very well look into Kaiba's soul room and be unable to resist the temptation to remove some of the excess baggage, so to speak.

It's funny, sometimes with a story there's a sentence or an exchange of dialog that captures what I'm trying to say in the whole story. In this case it was the exchange in Chapter 2, where Shadi says, "And what 'right' have I taken from him? The right to be vengeful, unhappy and misguided? The right to blunder self-destructively through his life?" and Yami answers, "Even those rights are his."

Basically, I wanted to capture the fluffy, slightly silly feel of the doujinshi picture that inspired this story, while playing with the idea that if, as Kaiba says when dueling Isis, what's in the hearts of men can surpass even God, it is our flaws, and pettiness, and even our smallness that keeps us human.

Thank you for taking the time to read the story. I hope you enjoyed it. Whatever your opinion, I'd love to know what you think.

 **Upcoming story announcement:** I expect to begin posting a new story in November. (Well, first I need to think of a title.) It starts with a "what-if" premise: what if Kaiba took Yami's words at Alcatraz that he had to defeat his own inner demons to become a true duelist a little too literally and builds a virtual reality world where he could do just that? Unfortunately he forgets that nothing gets deleted in cyberspace and that when Millennium Items are involved the line between virtual and reality can get blurred very easily. Anyway, if you enjoyed "Downsizing for Beginners" I hope you check out my next story when I begin posting.


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